Interview: Anya Taylor-Joy & Kate Mara on Morgan

Morgan is directed by Luke Scott, in his directorial debut, and written by Seth Owen. Every fictional story is a “What if?” and some of those what-ifs naturally play off earlier what-ifs, and take them in different directions or to different conclusions.

But the filmmakers’ idea of indicating Morgan’s frustration over being unable to process the wide spectrum of worldly sensation and human emotion is to turn her into a remorseless killing machine with a heretofore unexpected knack for kicking ass and a single-minded desire to go to the aforementioned heaven out in the forest.

At the recent press day for the film in LA, we sat down with stars Taylor-Joy and Mara to talk about the artificial intelligence dilemma, how cool it was to train for the stunts and fight sequences, and whether Morgan should be called an “it”. Living in a glassed-in cage, on the other side of which Morgan’s keepers monitor their young charge – only occasionally entering the cell for a brief interview – the movie’s apparently teenage protagonist opens the story with a jolt: by stabbing this odd little zoo’s nutritionist (an under-utilized Jennifer Jason Leigh) in the eye.

The big guns funding the “experiment” send in a corporate risk-management consultant, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara), to decide whether or not to terminate the “project”. Think of the lawyer in Jurassic Park being the main character, save for much younger and with an icy stare that suggests she is as cutthroat as any manmade monster. It’s Lee’s responsibility to assess if Morgan is worth preserving or should be eliminated. And then there’s Vinette Robinson (Sherlock) and Chris Sullivan (The Knick) as Drs. She isn’t just their work, they’re all proud parents.

Perhaps this is why Morgan is so upset after her latest outbreak, which caused Weathers to confine her to a glass cage for study. where she’ll remain until Weathers can deem if Morgan is worth keeping around at all. The trajectory of Morgan’s narrative offers very few surprises. In Luke Scott’s Morgan, the titular humanoid character is wireless, organic, and produced using processes real scientists are creating in cutting-edge labs. Of special note is Michelle Yeoh’s mysterious maternal figure.

Her reaction to the evaluation is supposed to be shocking, but Morgan’s behavior up to that point makes her tendency toward violence unsurprising.

Anchored by Mara’s rigidly controlled performance and Taylor-Joy’s tremulous yet quietly menacing work, “Morgan” is an effective tension generator that unfortunately falls apart at the end with fistfights and a vehicle chase.

An obvious connection to bioprinting is intimated when it comes to the question of how she was created. The performance walks a thin line between innocence and primal horror.

But unfortunately, and unlike Ex Machina, Morgan failed to follow through on any of its potentially complex themes.

First things first, Mara has never been better than she is here.

The character of Morgan is pretty complex. He just sort of released us and said, “Do your thing”. It instead addressed new and fascinating opinions about AI, personhood, and even a life online.

While Deckard was compelled by the state to hunt for replicants in Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”, in “Morgan”, artificial intelligence is a privatized affair. Although a film is assembled by incorporating many parts, the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. Mara, a whippet-thin actress with penetrating eyes, is a ideal choice for the steely Weathers, who doesn’t care at all that Morgan feels human and calls Dr. Lui Cheng (Michelle Yeoh) her “mother”.