2016 | USA | NR | 87 min.
If you’ve ever tried to pay a bill or get tech support
over the phone, then you know: automated
answering systems are the absolute worst. “Operator”
asks: What if humans could create one
that works perfectly? That’s the task facing Joe
(Martin Starr, HBO’s “Silicon Valley”) when he is
charged with programming the algorithm for a
health care company’s answering system. Joe
struggles to find the perfect voice for the program—until
he realizes that the soothing tones
of his wife Emily (Mae Whitman, TV’s “Parenthood”),
a hotel desk clerk, are an ideal match.
But as he builds the system, his interactions
with the automated “Emily”—always agreeable,
always right there when he needs her—start to
replace his real marriage. A film that will appeal
to anyone who loved “Her,” Logan Kibens’ “Operator”
is a brilliant, funny, and painfully timely
skewering of our tech-dependent world. In Person:
Director Logan Kibens; Producer Sharon
Greene; Actor Christine Lahti.