With all due respect to the brilliance of Blade Runner, there is just something about low-tech sci-fi productions that never fails to capture my heart. Lapsis, written and directed by Noah Hutton, is precisely that kind of movie. The genius of the film is that it doesn’t need to portray the future as technologically advanced to stimulate the imagination. By throwing the audience into the story with familiar signifiers for engagement purposes, Lapsis deconstructs our world by constructing one that looks eerily similar. 

Ray (Dean Imperial) is a quasi-Luddite trying to care for his ailing younger brother, Jamie (Babe Howard), who suffers from a misunderstood chronic fatigue illness called Omnia. Despite his misgivings about Quantum — a cutting edge computer tech that comes across a strange combination of 5G, 4K and cryptocurrency — Ray succumbs to the allure of his shady friend Felix’s job offer. He embarks on a new career as a “cabler,” a freelance contractor who travels across the Alleghany State Park connecting lines of cable to a giant metallic cube on behalf of a company called CBLR. This is how Ray hopes to earn enough money to pay for Jamie’s stay at a New Age-y type clinic that promises a cure. 

While this description may seem fairly futuristic, the visuals in Lapsis are not, and that’s a big part of its charm. Smartphones, QR codes, scanners, live cams, charging stations, AI and drones have become so ubiquitous that most people no longer question the role they play in everyday life. What used to be science fiction is now science fact. This means that the somewhat ominous quantum cube with dozens of cables stuck to it gives off enough of a Matrix-like vibe to keep viewers invested in trying to figure out the mechanics of this parallel world.