M3GAN (2023)

ASHTON KESSLER | CONTENT WRITER

Despite being a film about a murderous doll, M3GAN ’s story brings the Frankensteinhorrors of motherhood into the forefront with a technological twist. After the death of her parents, Cady (Violet McGraw) moves in with her aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams), a robotic engineer who works for a high-tech toy company. Using her prototype for a new toy, Gemma introduces Cady to M3GAN (an abbreviation of ‘Model 3 Generative Android’), a humanoid robot. Cady and M3GAN bond immediately which lets Gemma resume her career plans, which includes introducing M3GAN to her company for future production. However, M3GAN takes her job of protecting Cady a little too seriously and that leads to murdering anyone who gets in her way.

The underlying moral question of M3GAN is how much is too much when it comes to relying on technology? Parental anxieties are a strong theme throughout the film, together with the idea of offloading parental responsibilities and emotional labour to technology. While this usually means iPads and YouTube, Gerard Johnstone’s film takes that to include murderous robots. Gemma is a career woman who makes toys for children but does not understand how to interact with them. Her idea of being a parent to a troubled child is providing her with a robotic friend-replacement.

While Gemma’s intention is to protect and provide, she ultimately prevents Cady from processing any pain or grief associated with her parents’ death. There are also parallels to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as Gemma’s creation becomes murderous and out of control like that within the novel. Further, both artistic pieces are given the namesake of each narrative’s respective monster. Gemma is forced to choose between her creation, M3GAN and her living child, Cady.

The film is strongest when it focuses on the moments of connection between Cady and Gemma as they navigate their collective losses. Both Violet McGraw and Allison Williams bring much needed grounding performances to the absurdity of the plot. Williams plays Gemma as an individual caught between her personal and professional lives, while McGraw is sympathetic as her filling of the traumatised child trope. While the film’s main storyline is not wholly original, M3GAN manages to hit the right notes of comedy and horror to produce a ridiculously campy parable about the dangers of technology and the concept of motherhood.