26/8/2018 Black Mirror review – this nightmare sterile world is only five minutes away | Television & radio

levision & radio | The Guardian

Black Mirror review – this nightmare sterile

world is only five minutes away
Charlie Brooker’s future shocker, where people are constantly projecting
a sunny image of themselves and rating each other out of five, feels
terrifyingly close

Sam Wollaston
@samwollaston
Fri 21 Oct 2016 15.34 BST

9,002 133

I
magine a time where zombie-like people look only into their smart phones. They swipe
and they rate not just cabs and restaurants but people, too. They take photos of
themselves being happy and looking good; also photos of things – funny things, sunny
things, or food they are eating, cool food. Then they post the pictures and wait, for
feedback, for approval. They are posting their lives – not so much their real lives but the lives
they want other people to see and think they are living. Mostly they worry, about how they are
seen, about their status …

Imagine? Look about you: that time is here, even if some of the technology
in Black Mirror: Nosedive(Netflix) isn’t quite yet. Lacie Pound
(brilliantly played by Bryce Dallas Howard), along with everyone else,
wears contact lenses that feed her information about people and about
Charlie Brooker:
'Someone their ratings. Not here yet, but not a million miles on from Google Glass.
threatened to Likewise the hologram she meets, of herself – complete with hairstyle
smuggle a rifle
upgrade and sexy hunk – in the kitchen of a new apartment at the Pelican
through customs
and kill me' Cove Lifestyle Community, as an extra incentive to inspire, aspire to, sign
Read more
up. I was surprised the cars weren’t self-driving, but that was probably
more about logistics and cost.

Otherwise, it’s basically Instagram plus Facebook plus Twitter plus Snapchat plus FaceTime
plus Uber plus all the rest. And look, there is an actual app (not available in the UK, sadly) –
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26/8/2018 Black Mirror review – this nightmare sterile world is only five minutes away | Television & radio | The Guardian

Peeple, “where your character is your currency” – that lets you review other people as if they
were a B&B. In Africa your social media reputation can get you a bank loan. Far from far-
fetched, this shit is real, and if it’s not here now, it’s only five minutes away. That’s the scary
thing – and the power – about this and every episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror.

A saccharine pastel nightmare … Bryce Dallas Howard as Lacie in Nosedive. Photograph: Netflix

It’s not just about the technology, more about people. Again Brooker has taken the above and
turned it into a moving human story, about Lacie’s ultimately doomed attempt to better
herself – as in improve her personal rating from 4.2 out of 5 – by being maid of honour at her
(not really) best friend’s wedding.

Nosedive feels bigger and more cinematic (it is directed by film director Joe Wright) than
previous Black Mirrorepisodes. It looks and sounds beautiful: the sterile saccharine pastel
nightmare of home and office; the bleak freeway-scape from above at night; Naomi’s private
island wedding at the end, all blondes and jocks and perfect teeth; Max Richter’s thoughtful
score, integral rather than incidental.

Fabulous performances too, not just from BDH, but also from Alice Eve as Naomi, oozing
plastic fakery; and from James Norton as Lacie’s brother, who might only be a 3.7 but
(because) he’s somehow managed to keep a foot on the ground, in what’s important, in
reality.

You have too, you say? You’re a long way from all this? So you’ve never worried how many
Twitter or Instagram followers you’ve got? You’ve never posted something, then waited
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26/8/2018 Black Mirror review – this nightmare sterile world is only five minutes away | Television & radio | The Guardian

hopefully for positive feedback – a retweet perhaps from someone with a higher status (more
followers) than you? You’ve never felt anxious about any of this stuff, or what people think of
you? Well, that’s OK. This isn’t about you then.

Series three of Black Mirror is available on Netflix now.

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