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ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE CODDLES PARENTS WHO ABUSE ADOPTED CHILDREN
 Director
Stanley Kubrick wanted filmviewers to leave a cinema with
profound questions, not answers. When he started Artificial
Intelligence, he again had existential puzzles in
mind, but he did not live to finish the project. Steven Spielberg,
with whom he communicated about Artificial Intelligence,
then took over as director, but Kubrick’s name strangely
does not appear prominently in the screen credits, doubtless
because the plot was Spielbergized, though based on the short
story Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Kubrick’s biographer
Brian Aldiss. The film begins and ends with voiceovers that
sound much kinder that the actual text, which is quite disturbing.
We first learn that due to global warming, the polar ice caps
have melted, and the world has been inundated with floodwaters,
submerging various cities around the world, including Amsterdam,
Venice, and New York, and killing 100,000,000 persons. Since
there is little arable land left for food, the human race
increasingly relies on robots, who do not consume valuable
resources. We then attend a lecture in which Professor Hobby
(played by William Hurt) of Cybertronics, a New Jersey corporation,
poses the question whether a robot could be developed to express
love toward humans. A member of the audience, in turn, raises
the question whether humans will then love robots; although
that conundrum becomes the theme for most of the film, the
subtext is to ask why humans love at all, how much sacrifice
one must endure to achieve love, and what exactly "love"
is. Next, we observe Monica and Henry Swinton (played by Frances
O’Connor and Sam Robards), whose ill birthson Martin
(played by Jake Thomas) is frozen cryogenically until a cure
can be found. Monica desperately wants her son to live, but
Henry, an employee at Cybertronics, decides that perhaps a
loving robot will do instead. One day Henry brings home David
(played by Haley Joel Osment), a cute robot about the same
age as Martin; he proves to be delightfully playful; although
he can neither eat nor sleep, he tries to fit into the family
life. Although David’s charming behavior is exemplary,
Monica at first does not accept him, but in time she decides
to adopt him, and she follows a protocol that will create
in David a need to express love to her (but not Henry!). In
a few days, she gives David a present, Teddy (voiced by Jack
Angel), a "smart robot" who accompanies him for
the rest of his existence and provides comic relief as the
film gets more serious. Unexpectedly, Martin recovers from
his illness and is outfitted with orthotics so that he can
walk and otherwise lead a normal life. However, Martin and
his friends bully David, who accidentally pulls Martin into
the swimming pool, and he nearly drowns. Rather than blaming
herself for allowing Martin to be near the pool in the first
place, Monica decides to abandon David.
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Despite protests that he loves her, she leaves him in the
woods near Cybertronics, so he infers that he was unacceptable
because he was not human. David next meets Gigolo Joe (played
by Jude Law), a Casanova robot who makes passionate love to
women. Soon, a recycle vehicle rounds up discarded robots
for the Flesh Fair, where humans cheer as robots are melted
down. When David and Joe are put in place for meltdown, the
audience boos, so they are spared. Recalling the story of
Pinocchio, which Monica once read to Martin and David, he
then asks Joe to help him to locate the Blue Fairy, who could
turn him into a human so that Monica could love him and accept
him back. The quest for the Blue Fairy ultimately leads David
to the high-rise office of Professor Hobby in Manhattan, where
he becomes depressed on learning that Hobby will not turn
him into a human, so he plunges into the waters below Hobby’s
office. When he lands, the blue figure of Rockefeller Center
is in front, so he prays to have that figure turn him into
a human. Two thousand years later, while still praying, the
waters recede, and blue robots confront David. All humans
have died out, leaving robots in charge. One blue robot asks
David what he wants. David reiterates his wish to become a
human to please his mommy, a wish that the robot can grant
for a day if David possesses a personal object that will facilitate
tracing her DNA. Since Teddy saved a lock of her hair, David
gets his wish, and for a day he and Monica enjoy each other’s
company. Just as the day ends, Monica tells David that she
truly loves him, and his most precious Oedipal dream has been
fulfilled. She dies, and David for the first time goes to
sleep, dreaming. Artificial Intelligence draws filmviewers
to the concept of unrequited love, the principal theme of
romance novels. The pursuit of love drives humans to extraordinary
lengths, so why do humans put other values above simply loving
others? In death, we might have a second chance to make up
for our shortsightedness, but what about doing so while living?
But the most important dimension in the film is the relationship
between adoptive parents and their children. Monica, at first
unwilling to adopt David, ultimately does so due to her selfish
desire to be loved. But she calls Martin her "real son"
(instead of "birthson"), protects him from a well-deserved
scolding, places inappropriate blame on David for an accident,
and cruelly ditches David, who should be enraged by her abuse
instead of eager to get back in her good graces. Indeed, children
who know that they are adopted are likely to have nightmares
after seeing Artificial Intelligence, so parents should not
take their adoptive children to Spielberg’s film. Although
it is now some sixty years after learning about my own adoption,
the film revived some terrifying albeit resolved childhood
experiences and fears. But Spielberg has adopted several children,
who would learn from the film that they are not his "real
children," so he clearly does not understand the hornet’s
nest that he is disturbing. That the film clearly advises
a child to accept parental abuse stoically is perhaps the
most obvious lunacy of the film. A more sensitive treatment
of adoption is contained the recent film An
American Rhapsody. MH
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