As I write this in October of 2025, it seems everybody is fearing AI will take their jobs. It bring to my mind the massive downscaling of the employee base in the automotive industry of the 80s after automation reared its ugly robotic head. More recently, you have people in creative industries deeply concerned. I do not derive any amusement from observing the same concerns (rightly so) about Photoshop in the early 90’s and many people who exclusively work in computerized designed tools now worried about this next development. The next step was very recently, as some jackass has created an AI “actress” named Tilly Norwood. It is no surprise she’s a cute as a button, but then fake hot women are the most frequent images on clickbait ads, and I avoid those like the plague as well.
The blow-up over Ms. (OK, we need some other prefix for people who don’t even have genitals) Norwood reminded me of a movie lurking in the back of my mind and that was 2002’s S1m0ne. I had no interest in seeing it at the time of its release, nor at any time since then, but the recent controversy did pique my interest.
First, I’d just like to say how much I hate that title, another occurrence of that craze that went on for too long where numbers used in place of letters. In this case, the virtual actress around which the plot is centered is “Simulation One”, which Al Pacino shortens to Simone. Given the alleged brilliance of Pacino’s art-house film director, one would think he would be more creative than this but, no, he just types in a field and accidentally shortens it to the result.
This is the kind of movie where studios were still thinking audiences would be amazed by computers, but they couldn’t figure out how to make typing anything of interest. Frankly, nobody has yet to figure that out more than two decades later.
Elias Koteas is the inventor of the new “virtual actor” technology he gifts Pacino in his will. This mad scientist had the good sense to die before discovering absolutely nobody at any time or anywhere will be referring to his creation as a “vactor”.
That term had me thinking of another word, and that is “vacuous”. It is word I would used to describe the virtual being played by Rachel Roberts, as she is not an intelligence, but merely a puppet controlled by Pacino. It is also how I would describe the plot, as he manages to convince the public, studio execs and paparazzi that the singularly named Simone is a real, but deeply private, person.
It is also a world where he can commandeer an entire soundstage on the studio lot in which he allegedly does all his work with the actress. There is no way the studio would allow this. I’m also not sure why he feels inclined to do this, as all that is in there is a desk, the computer and three monitors. That could be setup anywhere, yet he inexplicably sets this up in a huge building that is going to draw undue attention to his operations. When studio head Catherine Keehner finally barges into that space, she believes his explanation that Simone is a computer addict and an agoraphobe.
I realize everybody is behaving in such a ridiculous manner because this is meant to be a satire. But it isn’t even effective at taking potshots at the obvious targets it intends to skewer. Among the low-hanging fruit are that actors are spoiled prima donnas, studio execs are idiots and paparazzi are scum. These aren’t exactly trenchant insights.
Still, there are some effective little moments of satire, such as an exec saying of Winona Ryder’s actress in footage of Pacino’s movie that he can hardly tell she’s using a teleprompter. Jay Mohr, her costar in that movie is upset she has left the production, that nobody can play the part but her. Pacino reminds him this is a remake. Something barely mentioned in passing is Keehner dismissing Pacino’s film as an overblown art film, when she had also been question a budget that includes stunt work. An art-house film with stunt work—now that I want to see, and possibly instead of this movie.
Where the film is weirdest is in its representation of computer technology. If all Koteas passed on to him was the hard drive, and Pacino has to do everything himself to protect his secret, I wondered where on Earth did he get a keyboard with buttons on it like “MIMIC” and “MORPH”. There is also a “SLEEP” button, but it makes the digital creation take a nap instead of putting the computer in low-power mode. Why is it even necessary for her to sleep? But the weirdest button is “HOLOGRAM”, which he uses to make her appear as such on a stage before a huge audience there to hear her sing, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”. Ha and ha again. Once again, if only he knows the secret, then he somehow rigged up the apparatuses on the stage to generate the hologram and without anybody associated with the stadium being aware of this ruse or assistance with its implementation. Lastly, I was deeply baffled by a 5 ¼” floppy he uses at one point in a 2002-era computer which somehow can accept media I had not seen since the late 1980s.
I realize the movie couldn’t foresee how soon AI could be combined with CGI, yet it is disappointing Simone cannot do anything of her own initiative. Really, Pacino is doing all the acting through what is essentially a computer puppet. He can even mix in attributes of various actors, of whom I assumed would be women. Then we see Ernest Borgnine is a possible choice, and I seriously wanted to see the results of him somehow mixed in with Roberts. And, if Simone is always under Pacino’s control, I don’t know what think of her unexpectedly saying “I am the death of real” at one point.
S1m0ne will eventually have its virtual star win an Oscar, and who knows if Tilly Norwood will ever be capable of anything worthy of one. I shudder to imagine a future where the awards possibly have categories for best actor, actress and “vactor”. Unfortunately, this picture is quite prescient in one regard, where Pacino tries to end interest in his creation by having her spout audacious remarks on talk shows. She’ll rant about immigrants, saying the country is too full already. She’ll suggest elementary schools have firing ranges. Great, not only would she be an influencer today, she’d be a wildly popular one.
Dir: Andrew Niccol
Starring Al Pacino, Catherine Keehner, Rachel Roberts