by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden
In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s the technology-gone-bad thriller, Romi, by Robert Cuffley, Susie Moloney, and Nevermine Films.
Synopsis
Forced to hide out at a state of the art smart home, a young woman on the run is terrorized by ROMI, its sinister digital assistant.
The Good
Joseph: Alexa Barajas gives a solid performance as Maddie, though she is saddled with a character for whom it is difficult to get behind. Some arthouse-style craziness in the third act was my favorite part of Romi. Kudos to supporting players Juan Riedinger and Pavel Kríz for helping to pull those scenes off, and to director Cuffley for coming up with them.
Mike: In a super-weird coincidence, the first movie I watched this year was smart-house-gone-off-the-rails thriller Margaux and now, almost 330 days later, I get to watch another smart-house movie. Even weirder is that almost smack dab in the middle of these films, I did a solo review for here for I’ll Be Watching which was — yes —a smart-house-gone-amok film. I bring this up because there’s just no way I could watch this without comparing it to two other very thematically similar films. That said, ROMI does offer an interesting twist to the proceedings which goes a long way towards making it stand out from other similar films.
Barajas’ does a nice job with her portrayal of central character ‘Maddie’ and considering she’s in about 99% of the movie it’s pretty important that she present a believable and likable character.
The Bad
Joseph: Romi is wholly unoriginal, even when it throws out curve balls, red herrings, attempts at twists, and whatever else it tries to hold viewers’ attention. As Mike mentioned, this one has a smart-house tech thriller as its base, but it also has a well-worn supernatural element to it that I won’t spoil here — which, had the entity intervened much earlier, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason why it couldn’t have, this would have been a short film rather than a feature-length one — and throw in a psycho killer for good measure. Speaking of the latter, his motivation for murdering doesn’t come much more clichéd. To top things off, I can find no reason to root for main character — it’s difficult to consider her a protagonist — Maddie (Alexa Barajas), who at the beginning of the film commits a hit and run vehicular crime and, while hiding out in the smart house that her politician mother arranged for her to hole up in while things blew over, hits the pills, weed, and booze while showing no remorse for her actions.
Mike: This is not a very good film. It’s very predictable, hitting every note like Eddie Van Halen playing Guitar Hero. There is an attempt at adding a little something new to try and breathe life into this sub-genre (which will hopefully go away soon), but it builds off of a saying that fits this situation in name only and tries too hard at shoehorning it into the story.
It’s also hard to root for a character as stupid and thoughtless as ‘Maddie’. While some credit should be given to writer Moloney for including a reason for Maddie to not go straight to the cops after her hit and run that opens the film, it’s her part in that reason that dissolves any potential sympathy for her on behalf of the viewer. And with a character with whom to identify with and root for, ROMI ultimately becomes nothing more than a showcase for a badly conceived smart house that makes me glad I still turn my lights off with a wall switch.
The Verdict
Joseph: Romi is recommended only for smart-house thriller, supernatural entity, and misogynist psycho killer movie completists.
Mike: If watching a film featuring a glitchy smart home that seems to be anything other than smart is your thing, by all means keep an eye out for this. If you prefer movies with original ideas that don't play into clichés, by all means turn a blind eye to ROMI
Romi
Directed By: Robert Cuffley
Written By: Susie Moloney
Starring: Alexa Barajas, Juan Riedinger, Pavel Kríz
Run Time: 1h 25m
Rating: NR
Release Date: August 7, 2023 (Canada)