The second fiction feature by documentary director Madeleine Rotzler — previously known as Madeleine Sackler — is ostensibly science fiction, though it feels more or less plausible in the present day.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
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Courtesy of Variance Films A decade or so ago, the premise of “O Horizon” might have seemed like “Black Mirror” fodder: Fed various photos, videos, messages and personal effects of a dead man, a computer program devises an interactive simulacrum, available at any time for conversation via a phone app, live if not alive. Today, the idea doesn’t feel old hat so much as depressingly immediate, as discussions of the ethical and existential ramifications of AI chatbots have migrated from the hypothetical to the everyday. But writer-director Madeleine Rotzler — better known as Madeleine Sackler, the name by which she made her previous films — largely opts not to get into the weeds there, focusing instead on one bereaved woman’s experience of healing with technological assistance.
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