M3GAN

M3GAN

Tonight, I went to see the new film, M3GAN. I was a little unsure of how the film would play out, after seeing the cringe memes and TikTok videos of M3GAN dancing in the hallway scene. I decided to go ahead and see it, because I knew Violet Mcgraw was the main actress in the film. If you aren’t familiar with her, she is a phenomenal young, up-and-coming star.

Violet plays a nine-year-old, only child named Cady. At the beginning of the movie, Cady tragically loses her parents in a car accident, while the family is heading out for a skiing trip. After recovering in the hospital, Cady is sent to live with her career-driven aunt Gemma (played by Allison Williams), who has no experience with children whatsoever. However, Gemma does have extensive experience in toy design, and works for a very successful company called Funki (seems like a playoff of Funko). After watching Cady struggle to cope with the death of her parents, and Gemma’s lack of parental/ relational experience with children; Gemma comes up with a revolutionary toy design, M3GAN (stands for Model 3 Generative Android). This toy is a robotic, realistic-looking girl that is designed to interact with Cady, and her alone. Ultimately, due to M3GAN’s impressive technological advances, M3GAN becomes a threat to society.

Starting off, I would like to provide some brief background knowledge on our main actresses in the film. Violet McGraw (Cady), is an extremely talented 11-year-old, who has had many roles in television and film, as well as commercials. She received her first credited role in 2018 in the television series “Love”, starring as a recurring character named Nina. Some of her more notable roles were, young Nell in “The Haunting of Hill House” (2018), Violet in “Doctor Sleep” (2019), and young Yelena in “Black Widow” (2021). She does not disappoint in M3GAN, her emotional range seen throughout the film is rather impressive. I expect we will see great things from Ms. McGraw in the future.

Allison Williams (Gemma) is not someone I have seen in films before. She is an American actress, and her most notable role was Marnie Michaels, in the HBO comedy-drama series, “Girls” (2012).

Amie Donald plays M3GAN in the film. She is a 12-year-old actress from New Zealand, and this was her first role on film (I highly doubt this will be her last). I was actually surprised to know they had an actress for this role. My original thought was, that she was completely CGI along with some puppeteer work. After reading a recent interview on hollywoodlife.com, I came across some information on how this outstanding performance was pulled off.

Excerpt from hollywoodlife.com:

“Director Gerard Johnstone admitted in a production interview that he didn’t think they’d “find anyone who could do what was required, which was to a) move like a robot, b) dance, c) fight and d) do four-to-five-page dialogue scenes and go toe-to-toe with our leads.” That was until Amie came along.

Movement coach Luke Hawker and stunt coordinator Issac “Ike” Harmon called Amie a “machine,” according to production notes. “Many major stunts they thought they’d need rigging for, Amie could do with a few minutes practice,” Gerard revealed. “She was a miracle find, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that there would be no M3GAN without her. To top it all off, she could not have been sweeter—and yet, she still loved doing the creepy, stabby stuff the most.”

As Amie tackled the physical performance of M3GAN a team of puppeteers handled M3GAN’s facial expressions. During filming, Amie would wear a prosthetic face that would later be animated. “For a lot of close-ups, we wanted to keep M3GAN feeling like an animatronic doll,” producer James Wan said. “We had a company called Morot that gave us a lifelike version of M3GAN for her close-up shots. It’s a combination of techniques and methods that brought her to life very successfully.”

I would consider this movie more of a Horror-Comedy film. Originally going into it, I assumed this was simply horror. Horror-Comedy might seem like an odd genre, however I think you would be surprised to know that comedy and horror are actually very similar. This idea is explained well in an article found on vulture.com

Excerpt from vulture.com:

“A funny thing about Americans: every year, crowds flock to the theatre and spend millions of dollars for the chance to see pretty people die on screen. The horror genre is popular for the same reason that people spend hundreds of dollars to go to a theme park to ride roller coasters – people love being scared. In fact, while sitting in a movie theater watching a horror movie, you’re likely to hear equal parts laughter and screams coming from the audience. Generally the cries of terror are heard first, followed almost immediately by a wave of chuckles, giggles, and knee slapping. In a paper on the functions of humor, Dr. Julia Wilkins calls this phenomenon “relief theory”. According to her article, we achieve such joy from being scared in certain situations because, while our bodies tell us that they’re dangerous, we still know deep down that we are safe, and this release of tension results in laughter. This is why comedy and horror go hand in hand both in literature and on film. Both genres have their own set of rules for achieving their intended goals, and by combining the “rules” of comedy and horror, one genre can greatly enhance the other.

When a Horror-Comedy wants to focus on humor, it focuses on what the audience already knows about horror movies as a setup, and then subverts it. The tension typically used to cause a scream results in a “punch line” that is either harmless, or so over the top in dark comedy that the audience can’t help but laugh. “

This idea can be seen in films like “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein” and “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil”.

At the end of the day, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and it helped having an open-mind going into it. I was definitely entertained and it captured my attention until the end. If you choose to see the movie, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.