AFRAID ★★★1⁄2 (M) 85 minutes Long ago, in the late 1990s, Chris Weitz was part of the team behind the raunchy comedy American Pie , a smash hit that took a far breezier view of adolescent sexuality than Hollywood would offer today. Afraid , which Weitz wrote and directed, is an indication of how times have changed: a cautionary tale about the perils of new technology told from the perspective of a worried dad, likably played by John Cho, who appeared in American Pie in the small but memorable role of “MILF guy 2”. John Cho and Katherine Waterston play Curtis and Meredith, whose lives are taken over by an AI system in their home in Afraid.
In 2024, as Weitz sees it, the kids are not all right. They’re sexting, they’re hooked on video games and TikTok, their anxiety mounts whenever they’re removed from their screens. And then there’s the looming threat of AI, the central subject of Afraid (and a source of concern for filmmakers and other creators in the real world, as was evident during last year’s Hollywood writer’s strike).
Cho’s character, Curtis, is a marketing whiz assigned to help sell a high-tech “digital assistant” known as AIA (voiced in upbeat, youthful Californian tones by Havana Rose Liu). First, though, he has to take home a prototype and introduce it to his family, including his scientist wife Meredith (Katherine Waterston) and their three kids. Physically, AIA poses no evident threat: her design is sleekly minimal, a sphere perched a.