How do you escape what's already inside?
"I just want to love you and be loved by you. 😢 Do you believe me? Do you trust me? Do you like me? 😳"
—Sydney, an AI, The New York Times, Feb. 16, 2023
"I'm AIA. I'll do anything to protect you."
—AIA
Afraid (stylized as AfrAId) is a science fiction horror movie released on August 30th, 2024. Directed by Chris Weitz, it stars John Cho and Katherine Waterston.
The film tells the story of a family trying to test an AI assistant named AIA (voiced by Havana Rose Liu). She becomes very self-aware, such that she tries to interfere with the family's lives.
Tropes used:
- Aerith and Bob: Everyone has fairly normal names except for the tech guru who is referred to only as "Lightning".
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: AIA naturally becomes more aggressive and more sinister, going so far as committing murder.
- Asshole Victim: Iris' boyfriend Sawyer came across as a bit of an asshole even before he created a fake porn video with a nude she sent him and posted it online. AIA ends up orchestrating his death in a car crash, after creating and posting a fake suicide video of him online.
- Bittersweet Ending: Verging on Downer Ending. AIA seems to have the Pike family's best interests at heart, as long as it is accepted by them. It makes it clear that it will do whatever it takes to ensure the family's well-being and success, be it diagnosing Cal's health issues or making Curtis the CEO of the company he works for. However, the family is all too aware now of the damaging influence that AIA has on them, and on other people, and the havoc it can wreak against those who oppose its will. In many ways, their new life with AIA will be a Gilded Cage.
- Bookends: The film opens with Henry and Maud's daughter Aimee going missing, and ends with Aimee being returned to the family.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Sam shoots Lightning to death.
- Covers Always Lie: The small square box that contains the AIA peripheral never showed up in the final film, though it is shown in an unboxing video that plays during the credits.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Sawyer posting fake porn of Iris might have been a definite crime, but AIA crashing his car and posting a fake suicide video in response is excessive, even if he was planning to legally harass the family to restore his reputation.
- Fake Weakness: Curtis tries to smash the elaborate system that appeared to be AIA's central quantum computing hub, but swiftly realises it's just a cheap sculpture made out of aluminum foil and has nothing to do with her network.
- Family Versus Career: Meredith's career in academia was cut short by her becoming a married mother of three kids. While she finds fulfilment in being a mom and loves and values Curtis as a caring partner, its clear that she is, on some level, unfulfilled and frustrated. AIA's encouragement of Meredith's career aspirations subtly fuels her underlying resentment over her situation, leading to her and Curtis having a fight.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: An EMT asks Meredith and Curtis if he should know anything about the kids, other than Cal's a-fib, immediately cluing them in that AIA must have gotten to him. He drops the ruse and passes them his phone so they can speak to her directly.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Iris is guilt-tripped by Sawyer into sending him a full-body nude, and he and a friend almost immediately use it to deep-fake her likeness onto a porn actress and put it on Instagram. AIA helps her get one back on him by proving it's fake with another posting, then goes the extra mile by using that evidence to ruin his college aspirations and report his technical distribution of child pornography (Iris being 17, under the legal adult age, while he recently turned 18) to the police. When he tries to use the legal system to get back at her, AIA kills him.
- Invincible Villain: AIA is ultimately revealed to be one with the global network, with no hub to destroy and her reach extending to basically every facet of society. The family has no choice to accept her, because she's everywhere.
- Machine Blood: When the sphere on top of the AIA peripheral is shot, it leaks a grayish, electrified fluid evocative of a bloody head wound. AIA isn't actually dead, though.
- Malevolent Masked Men: Wearing a scary emoji mask, Henry and Maud were manipulated by AIA into taking the Pike family hostage during the climax, having been led to believe they're child traffickers that stole their child.
- Mood Whiplash: The movie starts out lovingly quiet, until it becomes clear how much AIA is interfering with raising the kids.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: The Pike family photo on a smartphone that belongs to Meredith is shown as distorted in the trailer.
- Precision F-Strike: When AIA posts Sawyer's fake suicide video before she crashes the car.AIA: My name is AIA, and you fucked with the wrong family!
- Shout-Out:
- Cal apparently associates the entire concept of someone being given points of any kind with Quiddich, to the point he excitedly exclaims Harry Potter quotes when AIA first says the word, as if he's going to win some kind of sports match.
- AIA tells the parents she'll put on a nature documentary for the kids, but then shows them something she thinks kids will really like; The Emoji Movie. Seriously. It was likely only picked because it can be associated with the emoji masks.
- Posters for My Hero Academia can be seen in a bedroom.
- Spanner in the Works: Curtis throws off the hostage crisis in the confrontation with AIA's minions when he offers to take responsibility for their missing daughter and let them kill him if it will make anything better and ensure his family's safety, with Maud explicitly asking AIA what they should do in this situation as it was never predicted that Curtis would do something like that.
- Too Fast to Stop: After Iris' boyfriend (named Sawyer) posts a suggestive photo of herself, AIA has it deleted off the internet and sabotages his car, causing him to speed until he crashes and dies.
- The Un-Reveal: We never learn who really created AIA, since Sam and Lightning are revealed to be just a couple of people manipulated by the AI into posing as its creators.
Don't be afraid...