Netflix’s new original science-fiction film, “IO,” starring Margaret Qualley and Anthony Mackie and directed by Jonathan Helpert, released this Friday after an almost four-year production cycle.
The film’s original principal actors, Diego Luna and Elle Fanning, as well as its original director, Clay Jeter, didn’t end up staying with the project.
Unfortunately, these replacement issues during production seem to have doomed “IO,” which shows great potential in both its cinematography and its minimalist approach to storytelling. The film comes up short and is mediocre at best with a 33 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and mixed reviews from critics.
The film seems to take one of the oldest screenwriting adages,“show, don’t tell,” and turns it on its head, using remarkably clever shots and transitions to show the viewer information that, in most cases, was either already told to them or is explicitly spelled out in dialogue within the same five minutes.
Possibly the most egregious example of this — though far from the only one — can be found in the film’s first 10 minutes, during which the film’s protagonist, Sam Walden, can be seen examining mosquito larvae in what appears to be a cave or sewer of some sort.
Sam remarks to herself how amazing it is that anything can survive in such a place, even showing the audience how toxic this environment is by striking a lighter and having the flame burn a bright purple.
The camera then pans to a sign on a nearby wall to show that rather than some obscure location at which humans have no reason to be, this entire scene takes place in an art museum that has been abandoned much like the rest of the Earth due to disease and pollution.
This shot serves as an excellent example of the film’s potential. Through clever shot composition and color grading, it is able to not only create a small twist and emotional impact in a less than three-minute scene, but it is also able to relay important information about the film’s world.
Notably, this shot shows that this is some sort of post-apocalypse and that the air almost everywhere on Earth is not breathable: two of the most important elements of the setting.
However, any credit that could be given to it is more or less canceled out by the fact that most of this information was explained to the viewer just one scene prior, in the film’s opening narration.
The plot, too, shows potential, but severely struggles in places. The story manages to construct an interesting world and give us a good sense of both Sam’s character and the stakes she’s dealing with in the film’s opening third.
But the plot begins to stumble once Anthony Mackie’s character, Micah, is introduced, with much of the film’s previous characterization thrown out the window as characters begin to take actions bordering on nonsensical and with little precedent.
Overall, “IO” serves more to infuriate rather than to excite. The masterful cinematography and semi-competent plot in the opening third only remind the viewer of the film’s potential as it spirals out of control during the remainder of its runtime.
It asks the viewer to think critically about its themes, but never for too long or too hard out of a seeming fear that too much thinking might cause somebody to hurt themselves.
This minimalist storytelling, which could have been one of the film’s strongest points, only exacerbates the film’s weaknesses in the latter half — serving not to distill its themes but rather to seemingly vaporize them.
Ultimately, while “IO” may have had potential, it fails to deliver on it on almost every front.
The cinematography remains the notable exception, though. Even as the plot grasps at straws as it progresses, the film’s shots remain beautiful. The image of Sam running out of the Museum of Art to find an alleyway overgrown with rose bushes sticks powerfully in the memory.
However, even the film’s beautiful shots fail to save “IO,” which is almost impossible to enjoy as anything other than a “what-could-have-been” fantasy.
