Molly vs the Machines (15)
Directed by Marc Silver

★★★★☆

“I JUST want to be pretty.”

These words, sent into the digital abyss by Molly Russell just before she committed suicide in 2017 at the age of 14, struck me as hauntingly familiar. I’m not a parent, but I remember hearing similar sentiments as a teenager. In the 1990s, I recall much of the manufactured beauty we see today. The insecurities and cultural trauma of trying and failing to meet unattainable ideals were half-expected. Self-alienation, promulgated by glamour magazines, film, and television, were already distorting young minds — minus, of course the “Instagram face,” the “TikTok body.”

That’s the capitalism I knew growing up. The thing is, the digital abyss was never staring back. It was never explicitly telling those I loved that they were worthless and better off dead. It was never telling them how to make a noose or how to remove a blade from a razor, or bombarding them day in, day out with harmful content. Christ, how things have changed…

Molly vs the Machines is the story of Molly Russell, who took her own life after viewing 2,100 disturbing posts online, over a six-month period. Her fate is recounted by her father, friends, and, in what constitutes a bold move by the director, Marc Silver, artificial intelligence — a decision juxtaposing the sincerity of those closest to Molly with the detached ChatGPT-speak of Big Tech.

This is neatly interspersed with a re-enactment of the inquest where social media companies and, by extension, the new horror of our age, surveillance capitalism, are put in the dock.  

Arguably, it’s here that Silver’s docufilm is strongest. In the chilling context it provides, in its brief but on-point historical analysis, charting the rise of US technofascism. You’ll likely be shocked how we are being exploited in online factories, producing information for algorithms; how search engines are, in fact, searching us; how our laws are being openly flaunted and the richest men on the planet get richer, “monetising misery.”

I warn you now, it’s as informative as it is rage-inducing. If you’re not mentally pummelling Mark Zuckerberg by the end, in some rehash of the famous android-bashing scene in the movie Alien, I’m really going to have to wonder.

And that’s exactly the point. Yes, Molly vs the Machines is just one more thing to get angry about. But with Reform clamouring to repeal the Online Safety Act, it’s an urgent watch.

In cinemas March 1 to 4; on Channel 4 March 5