Imagine a time where zombie-like people look only into their smart phones. They swipe and they rate not just cabs and restaurants but people, too. They take photos of themselves being happy and looking good; also photos of things – funny things, sunny things, or food they are eating, cool food. Then they post the pictures and wait, for feedback, for approval. They are posting their lives – not so much their real lives but the lives they want other people to see and think they are living. Mostly they worry, about how they are seen, about their status …
Imagine? Look about you: that time is here, even if some of the technology in Black Mirror: Nosedive (Netflix) isn’t quite yet. Lacie Pound (brilliantly played by Bryce Dallas Howard), along with everyone else, wears contact lenses that feed her information about people and about their ratings. Not here yet, but not a million miles on from Google Glass. Likewise the hologram she meets, of herself – complete with hairstyle upgrade and sexy hunk – in the kitchen of a new apartment at the Pelican Cove Lifestyle Community, as an extra incentive to inspire, aspire to, sign up. I was surprised the cars weren’t self-driving, but that was probably more about logistics and cost.
Otherwise, it’s basically Instagram plus Facebook plus Twitter plus Snapchat plus FaceTime plus Uber plus all the rest. And look, there is an actual app (not available in the UK, sadly) – Peeple, “where your character is your currency” – that lets you review other people as if they were a B&B. In Africa your social media reputation can get you a bank loan. Far from far-fetched, this shit is real, and if it’s not here now, it’s only five minutes away. That’s the scary thing – and the power – about this and every episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror.
It’s not just about the technology, more about people. Again Brooker has taken the above and turned it into a moving human story, about Lacie’s ultimately doomed attempt to better herself – as in improve her personal rating from 4.2 out of 5 – by being maid of honour at her (not really) best friend’s wedding.
Nosedive feels bigger and more cinematic (it is directed by film director Joe Wright) than previous Black Mirror episodes. It looks and sounds beautiful: the sterile saccharine pastel nightmare of home and office; the bleak freeway-scape from above at night; Naomi’s private island wedding at the end, all blondes and jocks and perfect teeth; Max Richter’s thoughtful score, integral rather than incidental.
Fabulous performances too, not just from BDH, but also from Alice Eve as Naomi, oozing plastic fakery; and from James Norton as Lacie’s brother, who might only be a 3.7 but (because) he’s somehow managed to keep a foot on the ground, in what’s important, in reality.
You have too, you say? You’re a long way from all this? So you’ve never worried how many Twitter or Instagram followers you’ve got? You’ve never posted something, then waited hopefully for positive feedback – a retweet perhaps from someone with a higher status (more followers) than you? You’ve never felt anxious about any of this stuff, or what people think of you? Well, that’s OK. This isn’t about you then.
Series three of Black Mirror is available on Netflix now.
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