Auggie
How do you go on living your life when you feel useless? Felix Greystone (Richard Kind), a talented architect, has just been forced into early retirement by his firm. At his going away party his coworker Hillary (Larisa Oleynik) gives him a very special present: Auggie. This pair of A/I glasses when worn conjures up the vision of a companion, someone who represents the wearer’s deepest desires and is always available and amenable. Now that Felix’s wife Anne (Susan Blackwell) is busy with her career and his grown up daughter Grace (Simone Policano) is moving in with her boyfriend, Felix is absolutely and positively alone. He puts on the glasses and there is Auggie (Christen Harper) a gorgeous young woman who tells Felix all that he wants to hear. As Anne starts to drift away and contemplates an affair with her coworker Jack (James C. Victor) and Grace is asserting more of her independence, Felix grows more and more reliant on Auggie for companionship. Complications inevitable arise and Auggie takes over Felix’s reality.
“Guess you’re retired, life’s over, might as well die? You got a lot more to offer. Life is short. Don’t waste it.”
Auggie
Directed by Matt Kane, Auggie is a quiet, contemplative science fiction movie about what it truly means to feel valued. Not feeling wanted or desired can really strip someone of their quality of life. Through Auggie, Felix taps into an alternate reality where he doesn’t have to suffer the same fate as his fellow retirees. Also it warns us how technology can make us lose grips with reality.
It will be easy to compare this film to Spike Jonze’s Her where Joaquin Phoenix plays a greeting card writer who develops a relationship with the voice of his personal computer. Both are good on their own merits but personally I found Auggie a much more approachable story. I love how the film shows both the projected companion, beautifully played by newcomer Christen Harper, and how strange it seems from the outside looking in as Felix, a wonderfully restrained performance by Richard Best, talks to someone who isn’t there. Weaving in Anne’s story, played by Susan Blackwell, shows how we can be lead astray by real life too.
Auggie is available on VOD from Samuel Goldwyn Films.