Zoe (film)


Zoe is a 2018 American romantic science fiction film directed by Drake Doremus and starring Ewan McGregor, Léa Seydoux, Christina Aguilera, Theo James, Rashida Jones, Miranda Otto, and Matthew Gray Gubler.
The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2018. It was released on July 20, 2018, by Amazon Studios.

Plot

In the not-too-distant future, the most cutting-edge technology has honed romantic relationships down to a science: A computerized test can determine the likelihood of successful partnership between two individuals, and androids—known as “synthetics”—have been designed as the ideal partners, ones who will never leave. Zoe and Cole work in the research facility responsible for developing this technology, and it’s against this backdrop of romantic engineering that their own relationship begins to blossom. But a sudden accident opens a division between them, threatening their nascent relationship and pointing to larger philosophical questions about love, humanity, and authenticity.

Cast

On August 19, 2016, it was announced that Charlie Hunnam and Léa Seydoux would star in the untitled sci-fi romance film, which Drake Doremus would direct from a script by Rich Greenberg who collaborated with Doremus on the Emmy winning web series The Beauty Inside. On October 25, 2016, Stuart Ford's IM Global came on board to fully finance the film, titled Zoe, with Scott Free Productions' Michael Pruss producing along with Doremus and Robert George. By May 2017, Ewan McGregor replaced Hunnam in the film, a supporting cast of Christina Aguilera, Theo James, Rashida Jones, Miranda Otto and Matthew Gray Gubler were added, and a filming start date of May 8 was established, with the filming taking place in Montreal.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2018. Prior to the premiere, Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Australia and New Zealand, while Netflix acquired distribution rights to release the film as a Netflix Original film in Japan and the Benelux. IM Global merged with Open Road Films to form Global Road Entertainment.
The film was released on July 20, 2018.

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 32%, based on 25 reviews, and an average rating of 4.3/10. Its consensus states "Zoe has some interesting ideas but never manages to get a satisfying grip on them, settling for slow-moving sci-fi that ultimately fails to engage." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 39 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".