what's going on to all my movie fans out there and welcome back to my channel movie files elliott
back again with a brand new movie review and today we'll be discussing a new apple tv plus original
sci-fi drama by the name of swan song a film that will be hitting the streaming platform on december
17th and i'mma let you know if it's worth checking out in this spoiler free review but before we
break it all down quick call to action check me out on all my other social media accounts if you
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on the screen now if you enjoyed the review we'll make sure to like and share the review but also
make sure to leave your thoughts in the comments let me know your pros and your cons once you've
seen the film and of course let's talk sci-fi dramas what are some of your favorites let's
talk about that in the comments below so going into this new film i remember seeing this trailer
a couple months ago and i'm not going to lie to you all i got choked up just watching the trailer
alone so i said to myself i can only imagine mahersha ali playing two roles we got sci-fi
drama we got apple tv plus sign me up here we are discussing the film starting off with my positives
i want to talk about mahersha ali the two-time academy award-winning actor he doesn't just give
one great performance in this film but actually two performances we're going to get into this
character here in regards to first off he plays a character by the name of cameron now cameron
is a father a husband who's unfortunately been given the news that he has a terminal
illness and in the not too distant future there is a program in which you can clone yourself give all
your memories to your clone and the clones live out the rest of your life but here's the catch
your family and your friends and all your loved ones they have no idea about this program so here
is the mall dilemma that cameron has to go with number one he has a wife who's played beautifully
by naomi harris who is a mother of their son but also a mother of a newborn child to be and
the thing that he has to tackle with is if i tell my wife i'm dying soon and you learn
this in the film that she and their family as a whole they recently suffered a big loss so
him telling her that he's going to die soon is going to completely destroy her and she's
just coming into grips of losing someone close to her so just imagine how she's gonna take that news
of her husband and then the other side of it is well if i go through with this program i'm not
giving my family a choice to not even know what's going on with me and then to have them living in a
house with a clone so i love the way mahershali plays the father plays the husband you see the
flashmaster love you see him tackling with this idea should i do it should i not do it i'm not
giving them a choice i want to continue to have my wife to be happy to live the rest of their life
happy with their with their family so i just love the way he plays that and that's just one side
of his performance the other side is his actual clone who has this kind of naive nature of being a
newborn human of a source in this world and maybe correcting some of cameron's wrongs maybe being a
slightly better husband being a little bit more attentive to some of her issues that she's been
dealing with so i love maher charlie's not just the one role but the two roles and when you see
both of them on screen together it's absolutely fantastic they have this one scene where they're
just talking about the moral dilemma about how cameron's scared to do this how the clone thinks
that he can go into the situation knowing all his memories and being a good replacement for a
husband and and also a father i love their scenes together and mahersha ali absolutely kills his
role i don't know if this film's gonna have enough buzz or if apple's gonna push us as maybe an oscar
winning performance but in my book this is a great performance maharashtra lee and i think just
his performance alone is worth this film being watched by you all but let's get into a little bit
more of the story again the thing that i really enjoyed about this narrative in regards to drama
is again that moral compass of what would you do in that situation you know and i'm asking you all
if you were given the unfortunate news that you will be dying sooner you know than expected
and you kind of know that you're not going to be able to make it out of this illness
would you sign up for that program and i love how the film when it does focus on that dilemma how it
tackles that dilemma and how our character tackles that dilemma is something that's really well
placed out i'm a big sci-fi head and i love the the the drops of technology again this is apple tv
plus so you come to expect this type of company to have these type of films that blends drama action
comedy with a little bit of sci-fi where a little bit of technology so i love the way the technology
is used in this movie it's not over saturating the film it's not overly done in the film is perfectly
handled in my opinion it feels like a world that it could be lived in and something that we could
see in the future we hear about cloning all the time so i love the sci-fi elements in the film
but also love how the film kind of pushed these other elements of like okay can you trust this
clone and there's a moment in the film where you're like are things going to actually work
out so i love the way that the film kind of puts your head space kind of puts this psychological
drama in front of the audience and kind of the limit that's at hand so i love all those elements
but i will kind of transition to my criticism here not only is mahersha ali in this film but you have
aquafina you have glenn close and i mentioned the wife is played by naomi harris all actors i enjoy
but i do feel like a lot of my criticism lies within the supporting cast good performances but
i feel like the characters are very on the page type of characters characters we've seen before
very kind of stereotypical glenn close plays the doctor who has this program who is a new program
and she just really wants to see this program grown to fruition but that's really kind of all
she does in the film you have naomi harris which i love getting those flashbacks of them as a couple
how they came to be how they grew this family together how she dealt with her drama that she
had uh someone close to her pass away and i love all that stuff but i just feel like she was just
a kind of a stereotypical wife that didn't really have a lot of stuff fleshed out for her character
who goes by the name of poppy and then aquafina she is in a very similar position that at camera
zane where she's been given this news that she's going to be passing away as she goes through the
program and i like their back and forth moments she kind of provides the levity the comedy beats
in this film but i wish that her character would have added more of a of a social dilemma which
brings me to my other part of this film i wish the film again it's not focusing on the world but
i wish the the conversation at hand in regards to the moral compass of this program i wish that they
would have dove deeper into people that might have not wanted this program to come through how do
other people feel about this program there's a small scene in the film in regards to how you've
how we see poppy's perspective but i wish there would have been more conversations in regards to
how people feel about is is right is it wrong and i wish it was a little bit more focused on
that narrative and then the last thing that comes to mind it took a little bit for the
film to kind of pick up his momentum i would say the first 30 minutes of the film not that
it was bad but it was just okay where we've seen this narrative before there's really
nothing being added to the conversation so i feel like it took about to the second half of the film
to really kind of find its footing to find this emotional resonance so before i give you all my
overall thoughts and let you know if it's worth checking out on apple tv plus if you haven't
already make sure to like the video share the video and leave your thoughts in the comments
overall i gotta say swan song definitely provided me with a great performance mama hersha lee
it does leave you with some great emotional beats and leaves you with the question of what would you
do in the situation but unfortunately i think that when they drop the ball on the supporting
characters and not really fleshing them out not really expanding on the conversation at hand in
the moral compass and should you clone should you not but i will say at the end of the day
i was connected to the story i was connected to the characters and with that being said i'm gonna
give swan song a three out of five and i gotta say i recommend you all give this a watch now
i know uh coming out on december 17th we have a lot to look forward to nightmare alley spiderman
no way home and so many other things the witcher season 2 but hey if you want to sit down watch a
good sci-fi drama with some solid performances i recommend you all give it a watch and when you do
let me know your pros your cons your thoughts on the performances and again share with me some
of your favorite sci-fi dramas in the comments below so there you have it ladies and gentlemen
i appreciate you all watching this review if you enjoyed the review again make sure to like share
comment and subscribe to the channel hope you all are staying safe hope you enjoyed this video
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