In a near-future city where soaring opulence overshadows economic hardship, Gwen and her daughter Jules do all they can to hold on to their joy together, despite the instability surfacing in their world.
Unfortunately, the stilted script and portentous direction make Advantageous, a film written and directed by Asian-American women, a missed opportunity.
It's not hard to imagine it becoming cult viewing in places like Berkeley, the director's city of birth, or any college town or urban area with the right critical density of literature, film and women's studies majors who sometimes read Wired.
Achieves much on a relatively meager budget (it has an impressive futuristic visual design), and the last half hour is so irresistibly creepy that it's sure to invoke discussion after the screening.
You've seen enough movies to know it won't go as planned, but director Jennifer Phang's low-budget film is extraordinary in the sly way it dishes out the details.
A picture emerges that at times suggests a strange if alluring mash-up of "Stella Dallas" and Michel Foucault, with a smidgen of Jean-Luc Godard's "Alphaville" and a hint of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."
