Someone being in love with their phone sounds normal, and can be laughed off easily. But your phone being in love with you sounds absurd. Jexi, directed by John Lucas and Scott Moore of Bad Moms fame, uses that kind of mentality to create an eclectic look at phone addiction. Unfortunately, the film is consistently reluctant to be realistic despite being set in the real world.
The film follows the life of Phil (Adam Devine), a man with a major addiction to his phone. He has no friends, is stuck in a journalism job with a boss that hates him, and has been unable to pay his rent for the past few months. His world turns upside down, however, as he is forced to upgrade his phone and gain a personal assistant in the form of Jexi (voiced by Rose Byrne), a seemingly charming artificial intelligence. At first, Jexi seems to be witty, supportive, and caring towards Phil. With the help of his new AI friend, Phil becomes more confident and social, finding himself a girlfriend and a few friends. This turns Jexi into a tech nightmare once he decides to become less dependent on his phone and benefit more from human interaction – showing the dark side of what AI can do. Jexi desires to abuse and torture Phil, with the goal of isolating him and keeping him to herself.
While this kind of plot sounds good in theory, especially due to its marketing and advertising as a comedy version of Her, it fails in many ways. The message – that of not letting technology dictate your life – is slightly unclear and definitely flawed in the way it is presented. The way it presents the horrors of technology is slightly realistic, but it is a very, very superficial look at both the pros and cons. The writing misses its target, and none of the tense emotional beats really land due to the flawed message and reactions from the characters. The film had so much potential to be a humorous and emotionally-charged dramedy, but they decided to turn it into a one-joke farce that only looks at social problems in a superficial way.
An additional problem is the film’s dialogue. As mentioned before, none of the emotional moments really make their mark, and it’s problematic when films that are already shallow have no good moments. It’s also surprising when a “comedy” film such as this has weak jokes. While there are a few decent bouts of humor here and there, mostly in the form of puns, the bulk of it still panders extremely to tech-loving millennials. When I was in the theatre, many people were audibly confused to what was going on with parts of the film due to the way it pandered.
There are redeeming qualities, though, and they come in the form of the film’s cast. Adam Devine is excellent. Although he’s mostly playing supporting/comic relief characters now, he got his chance to be a leading man with this film, and he uses it to display good range in just one performance; Phil’s childlike wonder at receiving the his phone, his outward friendliness but inward insecurity, and his delicacy and fragility due to unfortunately-timed events all feel natural and realistic for a character such as this. Alexandra Shipp, who I grew to love with her performance in Love, Simon, offered positive depth to the plot through the ups and downs of her relationship with Adam Devine’s character in the film. If there’s one thing I agree with most reviewers on, it’s that she and Devine have great chemistry together.
2/5 STARS