TV-MA | 8 episodes | Drama, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Thriller | 2020
After “Ex Machina“ and “Annihilation,” but before “Men” and “Civil War,” writer and director Alex Garland produced the eight-part miniseries “Devs” FX on Hulu. (The term ”devs“ is shortened technology industry speak for ”development.") The sci-fi series was far ahead of its time when it debuted in 2020, yet now, just four years later, it feels not so much dated in hindsight, but rather eerily prophetic.
Unlike the squishy A.I. morality tale of “Ex Machina” and the fuzzy take on aliens in “Annihilation” (both examples of hypothetical “soft science”), “Devs” is rooted in “hard sci-fi,” where known factors provide the foundation of the story’s premise. Here, it is quantum computing and determinism, and whether or not humans have actual free will.
Opening Misdirection
Right out of the gate, Mr. Garland misdirects the audience by introducing Sergei (Karl Glusman), a Russian-born employee of Amaya, a San Francisco-based company reminiscent of Google and Apple. A meeting with Amaya founder Forest (Nick Offerman) and his assistant Katie (Alison Pill) doesn’t go as planned, yet they still offer Sergei a promotion to analyze quantum code at the Devs unit, Amaya’s separate secretive division.After not returning home after his first day, Sergei’s live-in girlfriend and fellow Amaya employee, Lily (Sonoya Mizuno) suspects foul play and immediately reports it to Kenton (Zach Grenier, the company’s pitbull head of security. He, in turn, reports it to Forest. Try as they might, the two men’s lies fail to convince Lily of what appears to be more than obvious proof of Sergei’s disappearance.
Farm It Out
To that end, the unkempt, disheveled, and filthy rich Forest hires quantum geniuses like Katie, code writer Stewart (Stephen McKinley Henderson), and sound waves whiz kid Lyndon (Cailee Spaeny) to piece together his vision. His idea isn’t made fully clear until the seventh episode. In both the film’s scale and scope, it’s mind-blowing that it isn’t time travel, but rather time exploration.
With the exception of the supremely average “Men,” Mr. Garland’s three other features don’t contain a single ounce of narrative fat; every shot, word of dialogue, silent glance, source song, and note of the score are there for a reason. The same can be said for “Devs.” A further example of this is the inclusion of Pete (Jefferson Hall), a homeless man living near Lily’s apartment who initially provides little more than incidental comic relief until the penultimate episode.
Pulling off a waste-free 90- to 120-minute feature is nearly impossible for any filmmaker, yet Mr. Garland has done so three times. Doing this over the course of a miniseries nearly eight hours is beyond comprehension, yet Mr. Garland manages to pull it off. Without being specific, a plot twist in the last half of the final episode didn’t quite work for me initially, but after a second watch, it made complete sense.
No Past, No Future
My biggest takeaway from “Devs” is that having the ability to view the past and the future in detail is ultimately something humanity shouldn’t want and certainly doesn’t need.A big part of the last two episodes examines the issue of free will as it relates to quantum physics, determinism, and knowing what happens in the future with absolute certainty. A scene with a group of Devs employees seeing a single minute into their futures causes all of them to thoroughly freak out. Think of what would happen if everyone on the planet could see a day or even an hour into their futures. Life as we know it would come to an utter, paranoid-laden standstill.
There are three criteria I use when reviewing a movie or TV show: Is it original, is it entertaining, and did it make me think differently, if only temporarily. “Devs” accomplished all of those things and then some.
If you’re interested in exploring the scientific free will theory further, check out the excellent “The Adjustment Bureau” from 2011, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.
