Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Turfseer Advantageous is the second feature by Jennifer Phang based on the screenwriter/director's award-winning short film of the same name. Set in an unspecified future, Advantageous' setting was described by one critic as a "feminist dystopia." The protagonist Gwen (played with great intensity by Jacqueline Kim) is a spokesperson for a biotech company, Center for Advanced Health and Living. When her superiors deem her too old to continue working in a job that demands a younger look, she's unceremoniously given the proverbial pink slip. The problem is that in the future not only are there virtually no jobs for older, middle-aged woman, but an economic recession has led men to be given preference in the marketplace (sound like someplace you know?) Gwen is faced with the crisis of not having enough funds to ensure that her teenage daughter, Jules (played by sensitive newcomer Samantha Kim) gets into an elite private school which will guarantee her upward mobility (the consequences of what happens to those who fail to move up in the world is hardly touched upon). Gwen is so desperate that she tries to hit up her estranged sister for money. That's a no go after the sister gets wind of a family secret involving her husband, with whom Kim had an affair with long ago.Of course that sounds more like melodrama--where the sci-fi comes in involves Kim contacting her ex-boss at the Center and agreeing to get involved in their untested soul transfer procedure. There's a Twilight Zone episode from long ago much like this: an "ordinary" woman is pressured into trading her body in for a new one with "model looks." Here, Gwen asks for the trade-in and ends up in the body of a much younger, supposedly more attractive woman, Gwen 2.0 (played by Freya Adams). There are few surprises after Gwen becomes Gwen 2.0. Jules rather predictably can hardly stomach her "new mother" until there's some measure of acceptance at film's end. The female companion I was with at the film screening found Jules' dissonance and eventual coming to terms with the new situation to be an emotionally cathartic experience. For me the turn of events (that truly smacked of melodrama) suggested a lack of imagination.Advantageous' central conceit, basically a body swap, has been used in countless other sci-fi potboilers. This might have been better as a one -hour episode in a Twilight Zone-like series. But here, the pacing is so slow, that only an extremely clever twist ending could have saved the floundering narrative.Given its low budget, Ms. Phang did well with the limited resources she had to work with. Utilizing CGI effects, drone-like saucers are seen flying across a future urban landscape. Holograms are also made use of to suggest the future dystopia. The bulk of Advantageous was filmed in Brooklyn—thus, along with the special effects, one feels firmly ensconced in both the present day and a fanciful future-scape.Most of Advantageous' drama revolves around the bonding between mother and daughter. Social issues are reduced to mysterious bombings in high-rises that are never truly explained. And the world Gwen inhabits is basically limited to immediate family and her employers. We really never do get a sense of what the world is like in the future beyond Gwen's narrow universe.Advantageous' strong suit is the compelling performances of its principal actors. The rather derivative sci-fi plot however, is merely a vehicle to highlight the melodramatic interconnection between Gwen, Gwen 2.0 and Jules. I suspect that many more women can relate to a film such as this than men. The mere trappings of a futuristic society are not enough to truly engage a demanding, critical viewer. Again, this is a film that simply needed to be far more imaginative than the final product proffered up here.

Analee Miranda I have to be honest, "Advantageous" is intriguing but frustrating for the first hour. Part mystery and part Dystopian-sleeper-drama, the story moves at a snail pace but like yarn to a scarf the information in the first carefully woven scenes is vital. Set in a near-distant future with a nearly non-existent middle-class and where education and talent are no longer commodities, Gwen relies on her beauty and youth to barely hold on to her middle-class standing. As she faces the ever-constant ravages of time, with a child to support, and a past she's too ashamed to confront Gwen makes a desperate decision to try an experimental procedure in order to guarantee that her daughter Jules secures a spot in the elite class.I cannot emphasize enough the emotional roller-coaster that the film evokes in its last thirty minutes. The nature-nurture argument alone will keep your mind reeling as the closing credits roll but as a former foster caregiver and parent, I cannot discount the deep ache that I still feel over the interaction between Gwen and Jules in the last few scenes.Described as "animal connection" in the film, the fact that consciousness is inching closer to a scientific definition is challenged by writers Phang and Kim who decry that consciousness without soul is incomplete.As a mathematical physicist, however, I find the ending hopeful in that "time" seems to be the missing ingredient. Reminiscent of Maxwell's equation's, I find that just as the time-harmonic equations show a simple and basic universe of electricity and magnetism, the consciousness-soul equation may indeed have its own trivial time-harmonic consequences.I hope you will agree with me, though, that the movie has an optimistic end since the final interactions between Gwen and Jules reignite a soul-like spark that is different but connected nonetheless to the original. It is this type of soul that many adoptive parents and children share and it is this time-dependent ingredient that may signify the potential for a complete scientific definition of consciousness.I recommend "Advantageous" highly and give it a rating of 9 out 10. It is worth it to suffer through the slow-paced start to reach a thoughtful, surprising, and satisfying finish. I do warn you, however, that you need to enjoy or at least be intrigued by science at some level to be as enthusiastic about the film as I am.

Matt Kracht The plot: In a dystopian future, an Asian woman approaching middle age is fired from her job at a creepy multinational corporation because they want a younger, more racially ambiguous spokesperson. How far will she go to regain her job?The premise is definitely interesting, and there were parts of the film that I really liked. However, the story continually came back to tedious metaphysical themes that bored me. In the end, I realized that the film was about the metaphysical themes, and this left me feeling a bit unfulfilled. I suppose it was even more so about cultural criticism, especially a feminist critique of how society treats female aging and beauty. But it kept coming back again and again to these questions of "why am I here", "what is my purpose", and "is there something insubstantial, such as love, that science can't replicate in a lab"?Kim plays a woman who must make a life-changing choice. Unemployment is skyrocketing, men are pressuring women to leave the workforce, and older workers are seen as hopelessly out-of-touch with the modern market. In fact, humans themselves are being rapidly replaced, and the only way to secure any kind of hope for your child's future is for them to attend the most prestigious schools. The alternative seems to be child prostitution. Most of this is established in the background; if you don't pay close attention, you'll miss it. Unexplained explosions rock the sterility and eerie quiet of the world, and news reports hint at terrorist uprisings because of a hopeless, jobless populace.So, when you lose your job, that basically means that you've lost everything. What if your employer offers to give you your job back if you'll let them control who you are? So, our protagonist becomes desperate to avoid forcing her own daughter to make these same kinds of desperate choices. What can she do but accept? The question becomes what price she has paid. As the film mulls this over, I began to lose interest. Normally, it takes very little for me to become heavily involved in a character's plight, but, in this case, I struggled. Maybe it's because I don't have kids. For a parent, maybe this would be a more harrowing tale.There are many admirable aspects to this film, chief among them a woman-centric tale that feels genuine. In some science fiction films, the female protagonist seems to have been written as a male who then gets a gender-flip to mix things up. Or she's a sexual object for the viewers to ogle. There's nothing wrong with a bit of exploitative science fiction, but it's nice to see something with higher aspirations every once in a while. This certainly has that, but it goes so far as to seem pretentious at times.Maybe this was simply too far outside of my demographic. On the surface, it's got a lot of themes and ideas that appeal to me, but the focus seems to be diametrically opposed to how I would have done it. Less metaphysics, more world-building. If you're interested in feminist science fiction, however, this is rare example. You should at least give it a chance if you're interested in such things. Perhaps you'll be more intrigued by the themes than I was.

bricker-08658 I streamed this independent title on Netflix last night. It's an amazing film - elegant, character-driven, and I really liked how the future aspect and technology were relegated to supporting roles; beautifully framing the story, but boringly routine to those actually living in it. The writing was excellent - trusting the viewer to connect many of their own dots and discern the treasures hidden within the story - and the acting was subdued and very believable. I was especially impressed with Jacqueline Kim, who was able to broadcast the depth of Gwen's history, intelligence, and ultimate loneliness with just a long gaze or a change in posture. I also have to call out actor Ken Jeong ("Han"). Until this film, my only impression of him was that of a screeching stereotype (see the "Hangover" franchise)...but it is clear that he can definitely handle characters that are both subtle and deep. Ultimately, based on the genre, I was expecting something with an "A.I.", "Blade Runner", or (please God no...) "Transcendence" feel, but instead found a deeply real story about love, responsibility, sacrifice, and loss. Jennifer Phang's "Advantageous" is definitely one of my new favorites.