‘Subservience’ Review – Even Robot Women Want Married Men

It’s hard to summarize if Megan Fox is acting well in Subservience. After all, she’s playing a straight-faced, submissive robot. Most of the time, she stands there. Director S.K. Dale knew exactly what he was doing.

Megan Fox (Till Death, Rogue) plays Alice, a domesticated AI gynoid purchased by Nick (Michele Morrone—365 Days), a struggling husband and father who needs help with the children and the house while his wife, Maggie (Madeline Zima), awaits a heart transplant in the hospital. What brews is an unhealthy affair between Nick and Alice, as the human-robot lowers its civilities and breaks protocols.

With the future evolving quickly and becoming a reality, where this kind of artificial intelligence is near, I’ve no idea how aware S.K. Dale is of Megan Fox’s cultural impact since the early days of Transformers. Fox is playing a female robot that listens to the commands of her male primary user and is available for anything he asks at any time. It sounds like a director’s fantasy rather than a serious plot, and perhaps that’s what it was for Dale. Either way, Subservience confirms that Megan Fox is still hyperaware of her sex appeal and is willing to wield it as long as she still has it (at this rate, forever).

But putting aside the apparent appeal here, which is challenging to set aside for a review, Subservience is thematically a good movie in many respects.

First, the obvious theme: Artificial intelligence has been shoved down our throats since 2023, to the point that it feels like it is chokeholding us. Sensationalist news reveals that the future will have human beings making romantic connections with artificial intelligence, which is a fearful vision. Scarlet Johansson’s Her alluded to this, where a man deeply connects with a woman artificially designed to love him back.

At this point, the theme does not seem like a coincidence and leans to a similar story arc whereby a man longs for a woman who appeals to him with no stress and provides an emotional and homelike environment for peace. In Subservience, Nick wholeheartedly loves his wife and, in his evident upbringing, has learned to become a domesticated husband, but while she’s in the hospital, he appears hesitant to allow Alice, the female robot, to take the stress off his hands while he works; school runs are taken care of, meals are cooked, and whiskies are poured.

I’m not entirely sure why Subservience does this, but it implies that Alice is focused on what a husband needs based on his emotional reactions, breathing, and pulse and adjusts accordingly. She adjusts to the point where she’s a hyper-traditional female robot to a severe degree.

Megan Fox in ‘Subservience’

And don’t take my word for it. Even Maggie, the wife, senses it, which confirms my interpretation. While in the hospital, Maggie appears slightly hinged on the fact that a Megan Fox lookalike robot in her home makes her husband’s life easier without a fuss. It makes you wonder what the future of marriages will be like if a world like Subservience exists. Will people opt for relationships with the risk of emotional stress and unhappiness, or will men and women purchase their ideal robot where all needs are addressed with no risk?

Subservience provides a story that gives questions to these scenarios.

Of course, people with a more modern perspective will lambast Nick for his actions in this movie and will point out that traditional household methods are unhealthy. Meanwhile, traditional types will believe Subservience unfairly provides the view for a traditional family.

Moving away from the themes, Subservience becomes a thriller in the second and third acts as Alice increasingly breaks boundaries and the terms of service. Nick becomes part of a confusing predicament where he is unable to handle the confusing feelings of being a committed husband while Alice is trying desperately to satisfy his needs.

But make no mistake, Subservience is not a film that should be analyzed under a microscope. It’s still Megan Fox acting like a female robot, which is confusingly sexy. And even if you do take the themes seriously, it’s a good thriller. And if you reduce it all down to a joke, you could argue that even robot women want married men.

Read More: Subservience Ending Explained