In 2021, director/co-writer Kelsey Egan brought audiences within the perimeter of a private utopia tucked away within a greater ecological threat that destroyed memories in her sci-fi thriller Glasshouse. Exploring the connection between memory and trauma, Egan challenged audiences to reexamine the stories we tell ourselves, especially those based on the information provided by others, that we so willingly accept without cross-examination. There’s danger of losing personal autonomy and individual rights in the immediate acceptance of information, even if we’re granted a kind of freedom as a result. Jumping back into a dystopian environment, Egan solo-writes and directs her sophomore effort, The Fix, now available on VOD and digital, a story that’s equal parts class teardown, ethical quandary over the greater good, and superhero origin story through a sci-fi body horror lens.
Grace Van Dien as Ella in THE FIX. Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures/Crave Pictures.
Due to a failure to heed the warnings of environmental decay, Earth’s atmosphere is now full of toxins that will kill anyone exposed. People are still able to breathe safely by using air filtration systems when inside or masks outside. Or, for the extra wealthy, a daily regimen of a drug called AIRemedy, produced by private company Aethera, can enable one to go maskless anywhere. However, the materials necessary to create AIRemedy are finite and something new needs to be discovered if the human race is going to have a chance. Unfortunately for model Ella (Grace Van Dien) on the anniversary of her mother’s death, she doses herself with an experimental drug accidentally while at a party, quickly discovering that the trip she hoped to go on is actually the start of a rapid evolution that might reshape the world as humanity knows it.
“… Believe nothing you hear, and but half you see.”
– Attributed to both Edgar Allen Poe’s The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether (1845) and William Johnson Neal’s Cavendish: Or The Patrician at Sea (1831).
Good advice in a world where A.I. is being pushed by multiple social media channels and utilized by corporations, marketers, and trolls in equal measure without concern for the social or ecological implications. Good advice, as well, in how to approach the world of Egan’s The Fix, though she tells the audience to beware from the jump via a commercial for AIRemedy that works to establish this tale as set within a familiar Earth but one which has ignored climate scientists at the peril of all life on Earth (so, perhaps, not too dissimilar). This opening also serves to introduce the hierarchy — those who can’t afford a mask, those who can afford a mask, and those who can afford the drug — while also introducing us to Ella. By using the commercial as the introduction, not only does Egan streamline the world-setting process, she also clearly establishes how facts are determined by those delivering the message. Another way to look at it is, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” says the adage attributed to Desiderius Erasmus (1500s), and those who control the supply of medication can also control the message. We are to trust nothing we hear and to take everything we see with a grain of salt — a wise warning because the characters we follow, save Ella, are not all who they seem, at least at first. This enables The Fix to be infused with a richness in the text as it relates to the larger issues of sustainability, human rights, and the intersection of capitalism and altruism. There are no heroes who are going to swoop in and save humanity unless we make them for ourselves. As an audience proxy, it makes a great deal of sense that Egan gives us Ella first, someone who is meant to be a cypher for some better way of life via her job as a model, ergo, someone pliable to a variety of situations with the added element of being defined by her attractiveness rather than skills or achievements. Can we trust someone whose job it is to sell us on an ideal? Can we trust someone who bases their success or failure on their looks? By contrast, Egan then introduces us to Solomon and Spider (Keenan Arrison and Tina Redman, respectively), two mysterious individuals working in a backroom, and Eric O’Connors (Daniel Sharman), the current head of Aethera. Given the very real skepticism that exists in the real world due to the politicization in most countries of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, are we meant to trust the pharmaceutical manufacturer promising a cure for all or the two people mixing chemicals in a backroom?
Keenan Arrison as Solomon in THE FIX. Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures/Crave Pictures.
In truth, none of the central characters are particularly trustworthy, which is what makes quite a bit of The Fix difficult to latch onto at first. What helps bridge the gap is an interesting choice in the production design and costuming to make as much as natural to today as possible while throwing in a few embellishments to help separate the natural from the fantastical. There’re the cell phones which are remarkably structured like an iPhone, yet appear more holographic on the screen when in use. There’re the bracelets with their own holo-tech that’s quite similar to a concept piece by Cicret in 2014. There are, of course, the use of masks by some who can afford it and the air filtration systems, aspects which speak to the current economic divide between those who have the means for safety measures and those are left to survive, with those who can afford it being viewed as morally better than those who cannot. Egan’s work is undoubtedly fiction, but it oozes with the same socio-economic issues that plague the populace today. Once more, it’s difficult to understand who to trust when scumbags are everywhere and even the people you think you know can’t be trusted. Of course, as the film goes on, alliances are formed as characters shed their public personas and Ella shifts from cypher into personhood.
Grace Van Dien as Ella in THE FIX. Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures/Crave Pictures.
In terms of a sophomore effort, Egan is going bigger in her execution, though not necessarily in her ideas. There are several action set pieces, chase sequences, gun fights, escapes, and more, elements which are unessential within Glasshouse’s narrative and keen to The Fix. The majority are handled deftly, with few hindered a touch by the use of song in place of score and not always diegetically. Ella certainly deserves her heroic moments, Van Dien (Charlie Says) doing solid work in making us believe the transformation from “lost girl in extreme situation” to “budding superhero,” yet the inclusion of popular songs in place of the score often distracts and retracts from the on-screen action instead of working seamlessly to convey Ella’s badassery in the face of horrifying conditions. Additionally, in order to fulfill the thriller elements that lend to the body horror aspects, Egan creates a swirling set of characters who are varying levels of deplorable, time spent with each tending to grate more than make one curious, requiring the audience to hold on longer than they may like. Egan’s ideas and the ways she approaches them remain large; it’s just that now she’s employing greater scale to go along with them. The central difference between Glasshouse and The Fix is that audiences may be more receptive to Egan’s themes in the smaller story and more distracted by the body horror in The Fix to notice them, but if The Substance (2024) and A Different Man (2024) can both be poured over by audiences, then so can this.
L-R: Clancy Brown as The Chairman, Daniel Sharman as Eric O’Connors, and Nicole Fortuin as Angela in THE FIX. Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures/Crave Pictures.
In reality, not all individuals are created equal or are born into equitable situations. If we, as humans living on Earth, expect for stories like Egan’s to stay within the sci-fi fantasy realm, then hard truths need to be faced regarding class and worthiness. There is no wealthy class without a labor force; there is no humanity without a planet to live on; and there is no surviving unless we stop working against each other for plots of land and shares of markets because it’s all going to come crashing down on us otherwise. No one is coming to save us from the oligarchs, the thieves, the traitors, or the capitalists. If anything is going to be fixed, we have to be willing to do it ourselves.
Available on VOD and digital November 22nd, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Gravitas Ventures The Fix webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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