Cinematic explorations of artificial intelligence are numerous and varied. With “Time of EVE”, director Yasuhiro Yoshiura distils the ethical questions surrounding a robotic future into a café-sized plot filled with colorful characters.
Time of EVE is streaming on JFF Theater
In the not-so-distant future, humanoid robots have become an everyday norm, serving humanity by picking up the menial tasks that no one else wants to do. High-schooler Rikuo becomes troubled when he notices that the household android, Sammy, has been making detours when out and about. His investigation leads him to The Time of EVE, a secret café in which there’s only one rule: no discrimination between humans and robots. As Rikuo spends more time at the café, he begins to question everything he ever believed about androids and their capacity for humanity.
The small-scale narrative makes for a more intimate and character-driven plot than one might expect for an animated sci-fi about androids. We’re introduced to each and every patron of the café, getting to know them little by little as Rikuo and his friend Masakazu make their various trips. Each visit functions as a vignette of sorts, this episodic format highlighting the fact that the film started life as a web series. That said, these minisodes gel together well as a whole, each encounter bringing something new to the table and giving our characters another reason to ponder human-robot relations.
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Where “Time of EVE” excels is in the likability of its characters and general charm. While none of the figures populating the café are particularly complex, they’re all clearly defined and have appealing quirks. However, the film also falls into the trappings of sentimentality when concluding its various subplots. Wholesome conclusions are wrapped up neatly in a bow, leaving little room for further thought or speculation. This less inquisitive approach might work better were the film littered with spectacularly animated set pieces, but it is wholly dependent on the character drama, the substance of which is sorely lacking the longer it goes on. Sammy’s development as she discovers her capacity for humanity is as close as the film gets to having a core story, but her personal journey comes as a result of plot necessity more than organic growth – she learns to understand humans better because the story demands it, not because she undergoes a clear arc.
While a quite derivative work, one of the few features that distinguishes “Time of EVE” from its sci-fi contemporaries is its familiar vision of the near future. As opposed to the dystopian, android-infested worlds of so many other sci-fi works, Yoshiura’s film presents a future in which humanoid robots have become just another mundane part of everyday life, treated no differently than any other piece of modern smart tech. While there are in-world disputes as to the ethics of giving robots too much responsibility, like using them for farming, most people have willingly accepted them as part of the new norm. The seamless integration of robots into society sees humanity sleepwalk into lethargy; why bother cooking, cleaning, or spending time with your children when your android can just do it for you? It’s here where the film is most pressing in its questions of the future, reflecting on our already technologically dependent society – something that has become even more apparent since “Time of EVE” was first released in 2010.
Disappointingly, humanity’s technological dependency is as far as the film gets in terms of posing ethical conundrums. A lot of the drama stems from questions of love, both platonic and romantic, between humans and robots, as well as the exploration of whether the androids have feelings, aspirations, and real, emotional memories. However, none of these issues translate to anything meaningful or searching outside of the film, given that androids of this kind don’t exist. Of course, you could throw similar arguments at the likes of “Blade Runner” (1982) and “Ghost in the Shell” (1995), but whereas those films intentionally blur the line between human and machine and hold back on answers, “Time of EVE” clearly distinguishes how the androids behave in and out of the café, giving the viewer definite answers where further questions would be more engaging. The quandary of who is and isn’t an android in the café is given less weight when you see that the robots act completely differently when outside of the non-discriminatory environment.
“Time of EVE” doesn’t reinvent the wheel with its derivative and mostly shallow exploration of artificial intelligence, but that doesn’t detract from its overall charm. The various episodic encounters, while frivolous, are entertaining in their humour and character drama. Although touching in moments and consistently entertaining, the film lacks the inquisitory bite needed to elevate it above similar films in the genre, both animated and live-action, that have explored the ethics of humanoid robots to death.
