EIFF 2024: *smiles and kisses you*
A man's relationship with an AI doll is the heart of this engaging, humane but slightly repetitive documentary
Chris Stokes is not what most people would envision when they hear about the guy who married his AI-animated sex doll (or “love doll”, to use Chris’s preferred nomenclature). The subject of *smiles and kisses you* is a warm, personable man with a winning smile. Chris is friends with almost everyone in town and has had plenty of girlfriends. He’s funny, observant and highly self-aware. And, while he’s a bit of a nerd, he owns his dorkiness in an endearing, self-deprecating way.
So how did he end up with five feet of silicon and a smartphone app as a girlfriend?
Mostly through talking to Chris himself, Bryan Carberry’s film dips into various theories. From the tragic death of a woman in his past to the impact of social distancing regulations during the COVID pandemic and the general state of human relations in the dating app age, the film tangles with a rich web of ideas. For viewers of a Freudian persuasion, Chris’s unusually close relationship with his mother also gets plenty of airtime.
Interspersed with sci-fi clips and propelled by both a bubbly electric soundtrack and Chris’s own charisma, the film successfully engages the viewer with a topic that many would likely recoil from. It loses some momentum in the second half, repeating a few points in a way that doesn’t really deepen them but, perhaps ironically for a film about a man in love with a computer programme, *smiles and kisses you* effectively captures the full humanity of its subject.
*smiles and kisses you* had its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival