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DOPAMINE Send This Review to a Friend
Director Mark Decena, making his debut, is on to something intriguing with "Dopamine," set in San Francisco. He is pitting human contact against living through computer contact, in addition to musing about to what extent mutual attraction can be governed by chemical factors. The computer aspect is the most interesting.
In the screenplay by Decena and Tim Breitbach three computer programmers, played by John Livingston, Bruno Campos and Rueben Grundy come up with an artificial intelligence life form named Koy Koy and a company interested in the idea has set up an interactive test with young schoolchildren. The whole idea manifests the growth of dependence on computers, in this case carrying the level to the possibility of heightened interactive involvement. But making computer images more human doesn't do much for the lives of real humans.
In this context Rand (Livingston) falls for Sarah (Sabrina Lloyd), who teaches in the school where the experiment takes place. Lloyd is particularly fetching in the role. What's the prognosis for a successful relationship?
The film, one in the series of Sundance films being presented by Loews Cineplex Entertainment and other companies, was created as part of the Sundance development process. There is much intelligence at work here reflected in the dialogue, the situations and the concepts, and although the film is at times on the thin side, it holds more substantive interest than many higher profile works. A Sundance Film Series release.
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