Turn Me On is the second feature from filmmaker Michael Tyburski, known for his directorial debut The Sound of Silence. Starring Bel Powley and Nick Robinson, the movie is a work of dystopian science fiction that explores intriguing themes around human emotions.
The story is set in a future community where feelings are medically suppressed. Each day, residents take a “vitamin pill” that tamps down passions and leaves them calmly content.
Into this sterile world come Joy and William, a young couple who decide to go off their pills. As emotions return, they embark on a journey of rediscovery, celebrating life’s messy beauty but also confronting its complexities.
Premiering at the prestigious San Sebastian Film Festival in late 2024, Turn Me On offers viewers 98 surreal minutes spent in this emotionless society, right up until its two protagonists shake things up by learning to feel again. With his sophomore film, Tyburski poses thoughtful questions about what we gain and lose by engineering our feelings this way.
Visualizing the Emotionless Society
Turn Me On immerses viewers in a future where feeling has been engineered out of everyday life. The film’s characters inhabit an anonymous community called “Our Friends,” and it’s here that medical advancements have realized a world without angst or unrest.
Cinematographer Matt Mitchell lends the setting an industrial sterility through a persistent cool color grading. Annie Simeone’s production design further strips surroundings of warmth, echoing the emotion-suppressants’ intended effect. Even character wardrobes by Kerry Hennessy lack distinguishing features. Constant overhead surveillance, lensed from a passive remove, reinforces total control over residents.
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Into this regime come Joy and William, playing out scripted routines with mechanical precision. We see the couple wake and smoothly navigate static schedules—ffrom yoga through packaged meals to inexpressive jobs and bland after-work socials. Their lives exhibit a meticulous absence of anything unpredictably human.
Director Michael Tyburski conveys their numb normalcy through restrained camerawork and actors Bel Powley and Nick Robinson who, in nuanced performances, gradually relinquish facial expressions. Constant reminders pervade that contentment stems from compliance, and feelings pose a problem. Pleasures arise solely from sanctioned pastimes.
It’s a vision of an optimized society where disorderly passion or dissent hold no place. A sterile facade maintains by persuading citizens their best interests lie in the sacrifice of whatever interrupts stability and productive citizenry. For Joy, William, and their peers, this anesthesia of emotions has seemingly become second nature.
Rediscovering What It Means to Feel
When Joy undergoes medical tests requiring her to halt consumption of the “vitamin” suppressing emotion, she experiences something novel—sensations beyond placid contentment. We see discomfort over this change melt into curiosity as Joy explores reawakened abilities, like her playful contortions before a mirror discovers expressions.
Her rediscovery, depicted through Bel Powley’s nuanced acting, sparks William to cease his own medication. As the couple explores intimate connection denied by their sterilized society, Tyburski hints at deeper bonds forming through a literal and figurative warming of colors no longer coldly clinical. Their burgeoning feelings inevitably impact lives narrowly defined until now.
In joy, emotions awaken like memories of experiences one didn’t know they had. Simple pleasures neglected for stability’s sake become revelatory. Her willingness to question routines taken for granted lures William from detachment into this mysterious new reality together.
As the pair rediscover facets of existence beyond the prescribed routine, they exemplify how spontaneity is necessary for understanding life’s complexity. Their relationship, rekindled with passion, highlights society’s lacking by only acknowledging stability over passions driving human progress.
Joy and William’s story, writ small, highlights our shared nature to fear yet crave sensation—to content ourselves and still hunger for fulfillment emotion offers. Their journey lays bare how sterility, for all its control, is incomplete without the richness emotions bring.
Emotions in All Their Nuance
As Joy and William share their newfound experiences, others in their social circle stop suppressing feelings as well. Each responds uniquely as repression fades, adding richer layers to the film’s storytelling.
Christopher, Morgan, Samantha, and Frank had been introduced earlier through succinct descriptors, now given fuller shape. Christopher grapples with insecurity in pursuing Morgan, while Frank battles jealousy over his wife.
Their journeys illuminate emotion’s complexity beyond simple joy. Sadness, anger, and grief—all emergent, a fuller spectrum than their sterile lives allowed for. Some even reconsider resigning themselves to placid lives.
In showing how rediscovering emotion affects each character differently, subtle performances shed light on individuality stifled by conformity. Relationships between the tight-knit friends evolve and strain as desires emerge where none existed before.
With interweaving storylines, suppressed thoughts and feelings come to the fore both within and between characters. Their discoveries mirror Joy and William’s, from rapture to sorrow and conflicts of the heart.
This layered character development lends the film nuance, addressing how fully realized people experience emotion’s richness and messiness. By portraying life’s deeper complexities, Turn Me On finds profundity beneath its peculiar premise.
Thoughts on Control and Connection
Turn Me On contemplates complex questions about human nature through its depiction of a society engineered for complacency. In stripping emotions, this world strips essence of what brings color and chaos to life.
The film joins a tradition of works like Brave New World and The Giver that imagine stability bought at the price of spark and soul. It taps into concern that modern pressures groom people for productivity, not fulfillment. The suggestion that one prioritizes another’s well-being by limiting their capabilities is masked as care.
Tyburski also spotlights the loneliness inherent to many sterile work-live hubs. Distracted bodies share space but rarely connect. His characters find intimacy where rules left none. Their story pays tribute to passion-driven history—hhow dissent and diverse thought progress humanity.
As Joy, William, and their peers rediscover emotion’s richness, so does the viewer. We live encounters Joy has never known: humor, grief, lust, and love in all its forms. In gifting this, Tyburski gives back a piece of our shared experience and makes a case for embracing life in all its joy and mess.
Turn Me On leaves one pondering: What do we give away in furnishing life’s comforts? At what point does order become so seamless it suffocates the human spirit? And how might we find a middle where people support each other to feel fully, without demand for conformity? Its questions resonate in any world that values control over compassion.
A Story of Missed Potential
Turn Me On flashes moments of brilliance amongst weaknesses that hold it back from greatness. Michael Tyburski directs with an eye for surreal visuals that spotlight life’s absurdity under repression. His minimalist style and Bel Powley’s compassionate lead keep viewers engaged.
However, reliance on a well-trodden premise and lack of character depth beyond Joy prevent the film from breaking boundaries. While it sets up an intriguing dynamic between the friends, only Joy and William feel fully realized as people rather than plot devices. More nuanced relationships could have lent higher stakes to conflicts.
The plot also loses cohesion as it progresses. Early social commentary on conformity and passion’s power rings true. But convoluted latter turns and a pat resolution compromise the bold questions raised. A grittier direction truer to its themes could have struck deeper.
All told, Turn Me On hints at potency but falls back on familiar tropes of the genre that hold it from uniqueness. Strong direction and Powley’s soulful presence make its positives shine, even if the whole falls short of its vision. Tyburski shows flair reinventing clichés—with luck and experience, his next film may realize dormant brilliance in this concept.
While not groundbreaking, Turn Me On offers fleeting glimpses into a future that could revitalize familiar dystopian stories. With refinement of craft and courage in complexity, its director seems poised to develop a magnetic style all his own. For now, its missed chances outweigh successes, but skill and imagination remain.
A Story With Promise for the Future
In the end, Turn Me On demonstrates Michael Tyburski’s flair for crafting evocative dystopian landscapes but fails to fully trust its vision or characters with complexity. While Bel Powley anchors the film with her nuanced humanity, even her talents cannot salvage a story that plays too safely.
Tyburski shows he understands drama in mundane details and surreal visuals that spotlight repression’s stifling. However, committing only halfway to troubling themes and neglecting supporting roles’ depth holds potential insight at arm’s length. A bolder approach may have stirred deeper thought.
Still, glimpses of Tyburski’s ability to imbue absurdism with profundity keep attention. With experience handling richer narratives and characters, his distinctive style could revitalize worn genres. Turn Me On flashes work that way, even if falling short itself.
While not a masterpiece, the film suffers more for missed chances than clear failures. Powley alone makes for an engaging watch. Tyburski’s next may realize dormant brilliance, learning from this work’s stumbles. For now, Turn Me On leaves its foremost messages and questions unresolved but indicates its director has intelligence and imagination that deserve a fully realized stage.
The Review
Turn Me On
While Turn Me On demonstrates flashes of promise through its visual flair and Bel Powley's nuanced lead performance, it ultimately fails to fully commit to its intriguing dystopian premise or develop complex characters. By cautiously exploring challenging themes and neglecting development beyond the leads, the film stops short of achieving its potential for deeper social commentary and emotional resonance.
PROS
- Evocative dystopian world-building with production design and cinematography
- An intriguing premise exploring timely themes of conformity vs. individuality
- Bel Powley's compelling lead performance anchors the film.
CONS
- Lacks originality and depth compared to other works in the genre.
- Underdeveloped supporting characters and relationships
- The plot loses coherence in the second half and ends too safely.
- Fails to fully commit to challenging its own dystopian rules
