Equals (2016)
*/****
starring Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart, Jacki Weaver, Guy Pearce
screenplay by Nathan Parker
directed by Drake Doremus
by Walter Chaw Drake Doremus’s Equals is Gattaca and Equilibrium and THX 1138 and Code 46 and Michael Radford’s great 1984, all mashed up into an easy-to-conceptualize and even easier to swallow twenty-something romance that posits simply that love conquers all. It’s inoffensive at all times, is only “science-fiction” because there’s a blue filter on the lens, and offers so little that is its own that it’s easy to miss an exceptional cast doing exceptional work. Equals is another prize example of one of those movies that people will struggle to remember (like Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go–just like, in fact) or come upon some time later on down the line only to remark how such-and-such is a big star now and how you never knew so-and-so was in this and, hey, how is it they got so many amazing folks in such a blah picture; did it even get a release?