Mahershala Ali is such a movie star it almost isn’t fair. Watching an actor of such effortless charm, nuanced emotional precision, and tangible physicality is a gift – one that he affords to Swan Song, a downbeat, somewhat sleepy sci-fi yarn about the people we love and the things we do to shield them from pain.
Ali is Cameron Turner, an illustrator in a vision of the near future that’s populated with so much sleek and glossy tech that it seems to suggest original movies such as this are only the first step in Apple’s master plan for world domination past cellphones and watches. He lives for his family; his wife Poppy (Harris) and son Cory (Rey) are the two constants that compel him to make it out of bed every day, which is exactly why he can’t work up the nerve to approach them with the news that he’s dying. Whatever illness is eating away inside of him is left unclear, but technology can’t fix it – at least not as far as keeping him truly alive. But a visit with one Dr. Eve Scott (Close) at her remote headquarters presents a potential solution to save his family the agony of his loss: a clone, complete with an entire lifetime’s worth of memories and experiences that can replace him without his family’s knowledge. Cameron recognizes the quietly disconcerting nature of the idea and it provokes an emotional and ethical evaluation of, broadly, the meaning of life. Is it wrong to lie to his family to save them from suffering? Can he even internally deal with a version of him that’s not him going home to take care of his family?
It’s a tricky circumstance that the film takes great care to allow Cameron to grapple with sensitively. This is an extremely quiet, moody, and mostly humorless drama that handles its protagonist’s conflict with an introspective delicacy. Cameron knows that he ultimately wants to spare his family from anguish, but watching this fringe experiment come to life just puts him under further distress. Watching Ali act against himself as Cameron and his double come face-to-face is at once stirring and unnerving. The movie magic of having an actor as multiple performers in a scene is downplayed; in a film that largely limits its futuristic world to background dressing, choosing instead to zero in on the interiority of its characters, this clone is presented with a sort of matter-of-fact naturalism. Both versions of Cameron are allowed to exist with an air of compassion for their situations. Clone Cameron didn’t ask to be given life and is now at the behest of the man after whom he was modeled. Cameron Prime can’t get over the fundamental belief that this is a different man that will go home to his family, while he spends his final days watching him take over his life. Another woman on the complex in the same situation, Kate (Awkwafina), is filled with a heavy resentment and depression over the choice she’s made that doesn’t exactly quell his anxieties.
Cameron’s journey is a complicated and poignant one, though the muted aura that maintains a rigid hush over scenes keeps the viewer at something of an emotional detachment. This never makes the final soul-stirring crescendo one may hope it would. Instead, its interests lie in the quiet soberness of standing at death’s door and wrestling with how far is too far when protecting those you love from the heartbreak of being human.
Available on Apple+ now.
This article appears in December 24 • 2021.