The Near-Term Sci-Fi Drama “LX 2048” Sees Humans Pushed Indoors by a Brutal Climate, Kind of Like Portland This Month

Here is your weekly roundup of new movies: what to see and skip while streaming.

By Chance Solem-Pfeifer

LX 2048

** The image of the lone figure wandering a deserted metropolis is as old as our modern idea of the apocalypse. Yet you could have approximated such iconography in many West Coast cities last week. That's to say, the criteria for credible near-term science fiction sharpens quickly, and indie auteur Guy Moshe is a mostly believable architect in LX 2048. Twenty-eight years from now, the sun sears skin on contact, humans cling to the indoors and their VR, antidepressants are basically mandatory, and insurance companies offer cloned replacements of deceased loved ones. But Adam Bird (James D'Arcy) resists it all—a real 1999 man, who likes to drive to the office, brew coffee and thumb his guitar. What's missing here is not imagination but a more nuanced observation of human relationships as a mystery unfolds. Adam's marriage to Reena (Anna Brewster) is hyperbolically vindictive mostly to move plot, a blur of suggested world-building by way of accusatory monologues about Adam being a loser and a dinosaur. The expository cheapness stands in stark contrast to patient, demonstrable moments of futuristic alienation—particular kids' devotion to VR. Ultimately, all movies are better with Delroy Lindo bit parts, but LX 2048 still feels like the one before Moshe's breakout. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. On Demand.

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