Artificial — NYFF Review

In many ways, Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial feels more like a spiritual successor to David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010) than Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, and it’s not merely because Andrew Garfield appears in both. Like Fincher’s film, Artificial follows men shaping the future of technology while exploring how their egos and evolving power dynamics define the company they build. Where The Social Reckoning felt oddly behind the times, Artificial, much like The Social Network before it, feels as though it arrived at precisely the right moment, on the precipice of a major technological shift. These similarities notwithstanding, Artificial doesn’t feel as impactful and lacks the staying power of The Social Network. However, it’s impossible to say whether we’ll still be discussing Artificial a decade from now.