Severance - A Review

 

Apple TV has emerged to become one of the hottest places for science fiction right now, whether it's Foundation, Silo, For All Mankind, Invasion, the reboot of Spielberg's Amazing Stories, or the Tom Hanks movie, Finch. And if all that weren't enough, there's yet one more that may prove to outweigh all the others in the long term: Severance.

It is directed, of all people, by Ben Stiller, whom I haven't ever thought of as a director. In fact, I usually think of him as the Winona Ryder's boyfriend in 'Reality Bites.' Or the zany 'Zoolander.' At one point, he rebooted 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.' But I may have to rethink the man, now that I've seen his new bit of handiwork. Stiller may be the best actor-to-director crossover to grace science fiction since Ron Howard.

The premise of Severance is simple, and builds slowly, but it leads to a crescendo that is impossibly good. The plot revolves around a shadowy corporation called Lumen. Nobody really knows what exactly the company is currently mixed up in. The company is so secretive, in fact, that employees are required to undergo a procedure known as 'severance.' A chip is implanted into the employee's brain which essentially induces a form of schizophrenia. The mind splits to become two minds. One mind knows only what happens inside the corporate building. The other mind, the outside mind, knows only what life is like on the outside. The outside self cannot take information into the building, and the inside self cannot take information out of the building. Thus, all corporate secrets remain secure. The moment the employee steps inside the building and enters the work environment, that person becomes, for all intents and purposes, someone else. To describe things concisely, employees inner-selves are referred to as "innies," while their outer-selves are called "outies."

Meet Mark Scout (played by Adam Scott, who was Ben Wyatt on Parks & Recreation). A former history professor whose wife died tragically in a car crash, he joins the corporation so that he can continue working without the memory of his dead wife hurting his productivity. Inside the corporate building, he becomes "Mark S.," who has been newly promoted to department head after his former colleague, his best friend on the inside, "Petey," was recently and mysteriously let go.

Enter Helly R. (Britt Lower) She has just undergone the severance procedure, and awakens on top of a boardroom table for no apparent reason. The board room has plenty of chairs, but no other people. A voice from a Charlie's Angels style speaker is her only company. It asks a series of questions, which Helly is too disoriented to answer. She tries to leave the boardroom, but finds it locked. Naturally, she freaks out.

It is eventually revealed that the voice on the speaker is that of Mark S., and that what Helly goes through is her "orientation," which all Lumen employees must undergo. She witnesses a video recording of her outside self, who informs her that she underwent severance of her own free will. She is then assigned to Mark's department, which is euphemistically known as "Macrodata Refinement," but all that really means is looking over spreadsheets with seemingly random numbers and sequestering whatever numbers seem "scary." Ostensibly, Helly is meant to replace Petey.

As life on the inside of Lumen is slowly revealed, it makes less and less sense. Departments seem to have no more than a few people each. Massive amounts of space are used for almost nothing. And one person named Burt Goodman (played by Christopher Walken, no less) seemingly has no other real duties except cleaning and reorganizing corporate artwork. Much of the corporate structure takes the form of some strange sort of personality cult regarding the company's founder, Kier Eagan, whom management reveres as though he were God himself. The head manager, Harmony Corbel (played by the indominable Patricia Arquette), spies on Mark Scott on the outside as his neighbor, "Mrs. Selvig" (though Mark S., of course, knows nothing of this). Only Corbel and a few others retain their memories outside of the corporation.

Outside of Lumen, severance is a hot-button issue, as one might imagine. Activists decry it as a form of oppression, even slavery. Mark Scout, while encountering one of these activists, derides and ridicules him. But he later meets someone who makes him reconsider. He meets Petey! (Yul Vazquez.)

Petey informs Mark that he used to work with his "innie" self. But Petey was not merely let go. He underwent a procedure known as "reintegration," which caused him to abandon his job at Lumen and go underground. He has sought Mark out, not because he wants to recruit him or make him undergo reintegration as well, but because he wants Mark to know the truth. Mark doesn't know what to make of him, but he's naturally curious, in spite of his timid personality. Against his better judgment, Mark takes Petey in and lets him stay in his basement.

Meanwhile, Helly R. does not like her new job. She tries repeatedly to quit, but encounters one roadblock after another. After petitioning her "outie" to quit, she receives a firm "no." Other attempts of hers at leaving also fail. Eventually, in some desperation, she threatens to cut off her own fingers if she doesn't make a video to her outside self in which she gets to say how much she hates her job and insists on leaving. She succeeds in getting her message out, but immediately gets one back in which her "outie" tells her, in no uncertain terms, "You work for me, not the other way around!" The following day, Helly R. hangs herself in the corporate elevator. Her suicide attempt is not successful, but it shakes up the entire department.

Helly's rebelliousness seems to have a ripple effect. It causes Mark S. to question what exactly the company does. His queries are rebuffed by Ms. Corbel with an outburst of anger bordering on violence. At the same time, Mark's two other colleagues, Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry), undergo their own personal trials which cause them to question their loyalty to Lumen. They all eventually conspire together to get a message to the outside.

How this happens, I can't go into for fear of spoiling the plot. But the weight of political intrigue surrounding the company is delightfully crushing. Also, when the outside selves of Helly, Irving, and Dylan are all revealed, it is positively explosive.

Add to all this, the mysterious character of Ms. Casey, a corporate therapist whose presence seems to unnerve everyone except Mark S., who finds her comforting, and he doesn't know why. She is played by Dichen Lachman (Sierra in Joss Whedon's 'Dollhouse'), and to be blunt, I would follow that actress to hell and back.

Severance was a nominee for the Hugo Award in the category of Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. In this category, I voted for 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.' But after finishing Severance, I wish I could go back and change my vote. Severance may be the most significant sci fi release in over a generation! I cannot say enough good things about it.

Go watch it, and prepare to be blown away!

Eric

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