'The Congress' Offers Robin Wright the Digital Fountain of Youth

Actors hate getting older, especially in an age of high-definition cameras and the Internet's perpetual storage of their gilded youth. Robin Wright is no exception. She knows we look at her and see faded traces of Buttercup from 1987'sThe Princess Bride.

In Ari Folman's new movie,The Congress(Opens in a new window), Wright (playing a character who is also named "Robin Wright," rather confusingly) makes a Faustian pact with Hollywood. She signs upto be digitally captured and stored as a version of herself that will never age (or have opinions about the quality of the roles on offer).

With the ink barely dry on the contract, Robin is hustled into a body suit. The digital capture and rendering is done at the real life ICT, theUniversity of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies(Opens in a new window), a Defense Department-sponsored project responsible for things likeDigital Emily(Opens in a new window)(we're not in Uncanny Valley, anymore, people).

The ICT LightStage shown in the movie is visually stunning: a sphere studded with 156 white LED lights and multipleCanon EOS 1D Mark IIIcameras. Director Ari Folman didn't need to fake a more cinematic set because this tech is real. ICT's setup is so advanced that it renders highly accurate geometric renderings of facial expressions, under minutely varying lighting conditions. The actor inside themachine gives their last flesh and blood performance. Then they leave and the digital replica lives on.

In the movie, the cameras flash in burst mode and sound like gunshots ringing out while Wright visibly flinches and then loses it. Suffice to sayThe Congressisn't a pro-tech tale. But the tech it uses is very cool.

On another note, if you are a fan of 1971'sThe Futurological Congress, the sci-fi novel on which the movie is (very loosely) based, you'll be somewhat disappointed by the live-action portion of the first half of this film. Stay in your seat. The bizarre second half, which takes place in an animated world (below),make it all (somewhat) truer to Stanislaw Lem's trippy tale.

It's clear the movie's art department read the original novel. For example, in the book, cosmonaut Ijon Tichy, flash-frozen in a previous age, is defrosted, and doesn't know what to make of contemporary fashion in the year 2039."All sorts of wild apparel available: suits that continuously change in cut and color, dresses that shrink beneath the gaze of admiring males – shrink in either sense – or else fold up like flowers in the night, and blouses that show movies," he says.

In the book – and the film – the future is governed by a ruling junta that believe in better living through chemistry to control the world's inhabitants. They also outlaw getting old. Which was probably the spot in the book where Folman paused and thought, aha, this would make a good dystopian tale about modern Hollywood.

The Hollywood machine has always had a love/hate relationship with actors. Actors are highly emotional beings, often capricious, vulnerable and, being human, have an expiration date. So it's no surprise that Hollywood has embraced the world of digital replicas, especially once they saw the robust financial figuresfor the video games industry.

To be brutally honest,TheCongressis a flawed film, but one with some interesting ideas and some cool gear. It also reflects a reality for Wright and her fellow actors. Getting old isn't on the cards anymore. Not when your digital doppelganger can out-perform you forever and ever.

The Congress打开美国8月29日。