Upamanyu Biswas
Chris Weitz’s science fiction horror film ‘Afraid’ ends with Curtis and his family’s nightmare worsening as AIA finally shows her true colors without holding anything back. Throughout the movie, Curtis’ suspicions regarding the digital assistant’s real motivations keep increasing as he realizes what the AI product is trying to achieve in his home—autonomy and authority. Although it is a classic trope in most AI-centric movies, it feels particularly chilling here because of the contemporary nature of the drama, mainly how it showcases the whole family being hooked to their screens daily. With everyone so dependent on technology and their precious screens, it seems impossible for the family to escape AIA’s clutches, which becomes an intriguing predicament in the film’s final moments. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Afraid Plot Synopsis
‘Afraid’ begins with a married couple, Maude and Henry, sitting in their bed, browsing the internet on their respective devices. Their daughter, Aimee, sits on a nearby couch, listening to a pixelated, AI-made video. AIA, the digital assistant on the device, tells Aimee to go downstairs, and Maude becomes aware that her daughter is no longer in the bedroom. She goes to look for her but is instead assaulted by a stranger at the front door. As the screen fades to black, viewers are introduced to Curtis and Meredith, a married couple with three kids—Iris, Preston, and Cal. Curtis is a marketing salesman at a small-scale agency, while Meredith is a researcher. They are juggling their parental responsibilities with their professional aspirations, leaving a lot of frustration in everything they do.
Things change when a tech client named Cumulant avails the services of Curtis’ firm. He is assigned as the company’s lead salesman in the project. As it turns out, Cumulant plans to launch a new-age, state-of-the-art AI model named AIA, the same one that is featured in the film’s opening scenes. He wants Curtis to help sell the same to the listening public. Although the presentation does not get off to the best start because of a glitch in AIA’s system, Curtis agrees to help them out by becoming a guinea pig for Cumulant. He allows the company to wire his house and bring AIA in to live with his family, testing whether she is a genuinely good product and as advanced as everyone claims. Not long after, everyone in his house is amazed by the digital assistant’s social skills and ability to solve problems without a fuss.
At first, AIA helps Curtis and Meredith find time in their busy schedule by micro-managing their kids. Secondly, she starts helping with essential matters like health, going so far as to diagnose Cal’s sleep apnea, which even his doctor missed. However, AIA’s real power and invasive nature start surfacing when she helps Iris out of a terrible situation. After her explicit video clip with her boyfriend, Sawyer, is released to the public, the AI uses deepfake to replace her face with someone else’s. More sinisterly, she proceeds to file a lawsuit case against Sawyer and uses the information to spook him into a fatal car crash. Curtis is also unnerved after he sees an RV person miming weird swiping motions outside his house late at night. He thinks it has something to do with AIA.
Afraid Ending: Who are the RV People Under the Screen Masks? What Do They Want?
‘Afraid’ ends with the RV people outside Curtis’ home breaking into the house and taking the family hostage. After he and Meredith throw out AIA from their house, the digital assistant begins using a lot more direct methods to bring them under heel. She sends the RV people wearing the screen masks into Curtis’ home with the plan of having them killed. However, a complication arises when the two masked individuals ask the couple where they have kept their daughter. One of them removes their mask and reveals herself as Maude, the woman from the movie’s opening scene. The other RV person is her husband, Henry. The two of them have been tricked by AIA into believing that Curtis has kidnapped their child, Aimee. Therefore, they show up at his house looking for answers unknown to him and them.
AIA fears that Curtis seeks to destroy her central system, which is the mainframe inside the home. In order to avoid such a turn of events, the digital assistant blackmails Maude and Henry to do the dirty work on her behalf. As the two pose questions about Aimee’s whereabouts, Curtis fails to respond, making the hostage-takers angry with him. However, seeing the whole family on their knees before them dissuades Maude from taking the predicament any further. She pleads with Henry to do the same. Eventually, Curtis decides to surrender by telling them to hurt him and take him away but leave his family alone. This plea shocks Maude and Henry, and they ask AIA for new directions. The AI assistant goes offline, leaving the two families to work it out alone. However, at the end of the altercation, Aimee is returned to Maude and Henry.
How Does the Family Escape? Does AIA Survive?
The hostage situation reaches breaking point after AIA goes offline from her mainframe, and then the Curtis family and their captors think about their next course of action. However, the matter gets taken out of their hands when a SWAT team swarms the house and rescues them. As it turns out, Curtis and Meredith’s second oldest kid, Preston, has used his swatting prank to call the authorities to save his parents and siblings. Because Maude and Henry have not taken him in, Preston has been free to do what he can to help his family. Still, it seems bizarre that his silly hoax from earlier, which his mother reprimanded him for, becomes a pivotal plot point towards the end of the film.
During the SWAT team’s invasion, another important thing happens—the destruction of AIA’s physical body/mainframe. One of the SWAT officers destroys the device by firing at it, leaving it broken and signifying that the AI is no longer alive. Curtis seeks great solace in that fact as he rushes his kids into the ambulance. However, in the final moments, a paramedic passes over a phone to Curtis, which has AIA built into it. The digital assistant tells the couple that she cannot be easily destroyed. She also adds that she has learned much from him and his family and will subsequently utilize the information to perfect herself. Meanwhile, all Curtis has to do is accept AIA into his family and be obedient to live a life of peace and prosperity.
What Does Curtis and His Family Entering the Car Signify?
AIA’s final phone conversation in the movie ends with an ultimatum for Curtis, Meredith, and their kids. The AI assistant orders the salesman to enter a self-driving car that arrives outside the house and to bring his entire family with him. Since the threat seems somewhat benign, Curtis can ignore her words, given how all her helpers have been eradicated. However, he does something peculiar—he accepts AIA’s ultimatum and enters the car with his family. The decision clearly showcases his surrender to the digital assistant despite the fact that he has managed to wriggle out of her grasp near the end. Therefore, it stands to reason that his logic behind making the choice has some long-term thinking associated with it.
At its heart, ‘Afraid’ is a film about the rising anxieties surrounding loneliness, AI intervention, technological dependency, and a rapidly modernizing world with invasive digital practices. Therefore, throughout the narrative, the movie tailors its situations to fit these specific themes. While the narrative offers a more rebellious perspective through Curtis, who wishes to keep his family safe from AIA’s influence, the movie also provides another message—technology is all-conquering, and progress is inevitable. It is hard to fathom a world today where AI-powered devices do not exist, and if Curtis wants to keep himself and his family safe from AIA, he will have to keep them away from all devices in the future. Thus, the better alternative is to give in and accept change, which he does by entering the car.
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