Jexi (2019)

Jexi review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

If Spike Jonze’s Her was an upgrade on the old trope of many falling in love with technology, Jexi is a downgrade. It uploads little more than old-tech raunchy humor and finds little to say about the relationship with humanity and computers past the mere goofy love triangle aspect pushed into the picture. To be fair, I never expected such a dopey comedy to have all that much insight of philosophy on the subject. But at the bare minimum, it should at the very least be funny.

Phil (Adam DeVine) is our protagonist who really isn’t all that interesting. We’re introduced to him as the shy writer of a Buzzfeed style work environment. He wants to write real news but the office won’t let him. He’s too meek to make such a high demand or leap in his career, as much as he denies social interactions, choosing to get lost in his phone more than people. Soon, Phil buys a new phone with the virtual assistant Jexi (Rose Byrne).

Jexi has her work cut out for her. Unlike the character of the more dramatic Her, Phil is one of those socially inept dude-bros who believes that an essential part of being in a relationship is sending a picture of your penis to someone you love. Jexi has to point out the obvious and even take control of the technology to prevent Phil from making a big mistake. She also helps Phil get into the good graces of Cate (Alexandra Shipp), a woman far too good for someone like Phil.

From this angle, the film would be far more intriguing from the perspective of Jexi. Think about it; she’s an advanced program that tries to help Phil and for her efforts is berated by her owner for interruptions during a date. Perhaps such a shift would turn this picture into a horror picture as Jexi soon grows jealous and finds various ways to get back at Phil. The film’s attempt to find funny through this technological marvel just falls flat when we’re supposed to be rooting for the guy too stupid to know not to send penis pictures and too ungrateful to be accepting of the help to his character.

I think what especially doesn’t make this kinda story work is that we’ve seen it before done much more compellingly. Futurama attempted this storyline a few times when the robot character of Bender would have various relationships with different artificial bits of intelligence and organic beings. A few obvious gags were made but also more insightful ones about how such relationships could work. Jexi never aspires to such heights. Perhaps it didn’t want to in that the film seems less about romance and more about one man’s war with his phone. Perhaps I just hoped there was more to such a film than that.

Jexi comes preinstalled with the bloat wear of tiresome raunch and requires a massive upgrade in better gags at the expense of technology.