“What if your existence were about to be erased?” It’s a question of much urgency. If my existence were about to be erased, I’d drop everything and focus on that. LX 2048, however, chooses to take the scenic route to the question, and even then it doesn’t really seem to address the question. In short, LX 2048 – directed by Guy Moshe – is a film that seems to be of two minds about the apocalypse.

Adam Bird, played by James D’Arcy, smolders with an inner turmoil and rage with only shadows to yell at. He lives in a world where a calamity has caused the sun’s radiation to be more powerful. To survive, the world’s populace has taken to the shadows: living their life at night, meeting virtually in the Realm, and gleefully popping their state-prescribed Lithium X pills so that they don’t get too sad at what life is like.

Nevertheless, Adam still insists on commuting during the day. He dons a radiation hazmat suit and drives around in a convertible with the top down, blasting the car radio, cruising down an empty freeway in scenes reminiscent of a lone survivor of some apocalypse. He still goes to the office – and is the only one there. To interact with his missing coworkers, he has a VR headset and connects to the Realm. He sits in his office when he needs to and even goes to the conference room for a virtual meeting.

In an empty conference room, on an empty office floor, in an empty office building, Adam insists on going through the motions and maintaining what look like vestigial cultural norms. In our own current climate (and what I’m sure a post-pandemic world will look like), these scenes of Adam working virtually feels hauntingly familiar.

Getting a big Marty Jr vibe from Back to the Future II off this kid.

We are also introduced to the clones – a workforce that’s been enhanced to withstand the extra radiation of the world without any injury. This is the end result of the Premium 3 program. If someone dies, they are replaced with a clone. Both Adam and his wife, Reena (Anna Brewster), qualify for Premium 3. Adam has contempt for the clones, admitting earlier in the film that they miss the spark that makes humans human.

To further up the ante, we learn that Adam has a weakening heart and limited time left on Earth.

Adam is the one person who insists on clinging to the “society that was” as everyone else moves forward. And he’s angry. His anger touches on Michael Douglas’s performance in Falling Down, except the world had already moved on and Adam is yelling at shadows. Like Douglas’s character, Adam is an incredibly flawed and inconsistent individual: he cheats on his wife and is hurt to the core when his mistress shows infidelity; he self-medicates heavily with alcohol while absolutely refusing the Lithium X happy pills; he judges people for how they present themselves virtually while refusing to be present online at all.

But these inconsistencies and flaws are what make Adam human. They’re flaws and inconsistencies that Reena is all but happy to paint over when she receives a Premium 3 “upgrade” of him when his heart finally checks him out. That becomes the focus for Adam’s rage: survival. He rages against the darkness hoping to somehow receive a new heart.

There are strong hints toward thematic dichotomies in the film: virtual vs. real, night vs. day, clones vs. humans, masculine vs. humanity. Indeed, the movie plays with the dichotomy between the virtual and the real as a veneer for how society expects people to act… and how people need to act. We’re pushed to sympathize with Adam for trying to cope in an impossible situation. In the end, it comes off as a tragedy – a downfall of his own making.

The film touches on many themes, but unfortunately it really just skirts them rather than trying to seriously tackle them. Musically, the film tries to paint itself as a neo-noir with Western sensibilities, as if it sits across the street from Frank Miller’s Sin City or other recent noir films such as Vaughn Stein’s Terminal, but tonally it comes off as odd. LX 2048 borrows from the noir genre without actually committing to being one.

Like traditional noir, though, the film is unable to treat women well. Reena is seen purely in a conniving light, trying to drag Adam down, despite the fact that she has every right to untether herself from him. Maria (Gabrielle Cassi), Adam’s virtual paramour, is doting as his his sex slave until she’s given freedom. Dr. Rhys (Gina McKee), Adam’s psychologist, is only really there to display Adam’s distaste for clones and then for an added moment of shock.

In the end, there’s a lot to explore in LX 2048. It’s a fascinating film that feels uneven or incohesive at times, but it makes you question if that lack of cohesion is intentional. Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the film and look forward to watching it again. If you’re a fan of science fiction, exploring questions of reality and how society copes with disasters (and wondering where – and if – you fit in), LX 2048 might be for you.

LX 2048 will be available to rent or own September 25th on Amazon, iTunes, Comcast, Spectrum, Dish, DirecTV, Vudu, and more in the United States and Canada.