Interesting, well directed, and some career best work from Hemsworth and Teller

“Top Gun: Maverick” hasn’t made its way to streaming yet but if one were to want to stay home but still see why director Joseph Kosinski and Miles Teller are becoming hot again after very mixed-bag careers then that person could check out Netflix’s “Spiderhead”, a cerebral sci-fi flick that also gives Chris Hemsworth his best non-Thor role.

The film, based on a short story that appeared in “The New Yorker Magazine” (listed as a producer of this film), takes place in a penitentiary that is also a research facility. Dr. Steve Agnesti (Hemsworth) performs pharmacological studies on willing prisoner participants, hoping that his drug trials will lead to a more improved society.

The participants have all given their consent to participate in the trials, which involve little plastic packs attached to their backs which administer the drugs by remote control from a phone Steve controls. The prison, more of a compound, is located on a pleasant mountainous island paradise and their cells are less institutional than comfortable.

From the outset it appears they’ve all traded up from the usual prison cliches of beatings and brutality. Put a male and female prisoner in a room together, administer drug N-40, and watch a trial that doesn’t just promote wild lust but could also be the thing that creates more love in the world, rather than loneliness.

But what sort of person would volunteer to have their brain fucked with and altered? To give up any semblance of free-will? Jeff (Teller) is such a person, someone so racked with guilt and regret over the horrific drunk driving accident that landed him here. He’s a character often torn between wanting to punish himself and wanting to save others.

Much of the screen time is shared between Hemsworth and Teller and it’s a relationship of obsessiveness and control.

Hemsworth, looking clean cut in a casual suit and glasses which screams “head of a tech company”, pushes boundaries and crosses lines as Steve, a man who’s not used to the words “no” or “stop”. He’s committed to perfectionism, even if it means putting people at risk, and he’s so good at going from pleasant manipulations and promises to outright threats in the blink of an eye to accomplish his goals. And Teller carries the vulnerability well, which allows Hemsworth to push him the hardest.

The movie asks us if love, or any feeling, can exist from a chemical compound alone? For that matter, can guilt also be erased by one? If we see someone in pain and want that to stop, is it necessarily love or just regular human empathy? There are good questions here, ones that unfortunately kinda get lost once the horror elements of the last third of the film start to kick in.

The film is so inviting though that it’s hard to fault it too much- the scenic views that begin the film reminded me a bit of “Ex Machina” in how they draw us in with pleasantness before all the disturbing stuff starts, and the film can be funny too, a final chase set to Hall and Oates and Hemsworth complaining about beautiful people being just a few of the highlights.

The chemistry between Hemsworth and Teller, Kosinski’s exquisite scenery and light but still provocative tone, and not to mention another solid performance from Jurnee Smollett as Teller’s love interest, also contribute a great deal. This is not a great movie, but compared to Netflix’s recent output, it’s one of the smarter, more compelling ones.

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