O Horizon Review: A Haunting and Bittersweet Look at Loneliness, Technology, and Love Without Human Context

Beneath the surface, O Horizon is not so different from films like Her, After Yang, the excellent Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back,” and Ruby Sparks. However, the script uses science-fiction trappings as a beard to tell a story that uses technology once considered far-fetched in those earlier examples, bringing it into a time when the fabrication of a person can project the main character’s personal needs rather than focus on the recreated person’s own autonomy.

While O Horizon struggles to find its footing and put its own stamp on the genre, the film turns the numbing effects of loneliness into a character study of humanity. Highlighted by two strong lead performances, it explores loneliness, technology, and the meaning of human connection without human context in thoughtful, if not uneven, ways.

What is O Horizon about?

The story follows Abby (Borat 2’s Maria Bakalova), a young and brilliant neuroscientist, cue Colonel Jessep saying, “Is there another kind?” who is dealing with loneliness and the stages of grief. We are now living in a digital world, so her AI assistant notices that her social calendar has been desolate for months. It even suggests that she visit the “Seeking a Friend Store,” a digital service that can create, or recreate, a friend or loved one for you.

When Abby walks in, she meets Sam (Adam Pally, doing the character he has played for nearly fifteen years, a big, lovable, doofus), a neurotic computer programmer who can fill the void. You want a girlfriend? A BFF? Heck, Sam can even recreate a certain German dictator, even though it goes against his background and beliefs, because the money was right. While Abby doesn’t quite go to that extreme, she does have one person in her mind.

That is her father, Warren (Academy Award nominee David Strathairn), who recently passed away and whom Abby is still mourning. She sends some videos over to Sam, who uploads them, and shortly after, she has her own digital version of Warren. Abby hopes to recreate the love and emotional reassurance that only a father can provide his daughter. Pretty soon, this version of her father begins pushing the boundaries of love, overprotection, and emotional dependence.

O Horizon Review

O Horizon is written and directed by Madeleine Sackler, who has built a reputation for stunning documentary films like The Lottery. Her films are socially conscious, institutionally focused, documentary-rooted, and humanistic, often set against gritty, macro-level backdrops. On the surface, her latest looks like quite the departure from her earlier work, being a subtle science-fiction picture that, ten years ago, would have seemed far-fetched.

Sackler now turns her gaze inward. After dealing with institutions like schools, prisons, and government, she explores the emotional prison of loneliness, grief, and a new solution people are beginning to consider: technology. For instance, many scholarly articles, including some from the National Institutes of Health, have examined people using platforms like ChatGPT to ease loneliness or seek mental health support.

Sackler plays with these themes in creative and startling ways. The result is something soulful and haunting, even funny and contemplative. In one of the movie’s best scenes, Warren calls Abby’s boyfriend, Douglas, played by Avi Nash (Silo), in a classic “father knows best” moment, wanting to know his intentions. This is important, as Warren replicates the gestures of his parental role but lacks the context that would give those acts greater meaning.

Is O Horizon worth watching?

What was once sweet now feels odd, intrusive, and even unsettling. This is where Ms. Bakalova and Mr. Strathairn turn the film into an actor’s showcase, finding meaning and understanding in the delicate dance they both, yes, even the digital being, begin to play. Bakalova is poignant and deeply moving, always in the moment. In the end, despite the film’s third-act misfire, there is a patience for revelations that are subtle and not quite revolutionary.

The point of Ms. Sackler’s O Horizon is an affecting character study of grief, loneliness, and the dangerous comfort of not refusing to let go, but of moving forward, which is reinvention, where technology may be holding us back, rather than guiding us forward.

You can watch O Horizon in theaters exclusively in New York on June 12th and then in Los Angeles on June 19th!

O Horizon Review: A Haunting and Bittersweet Look at Loneliness, Technology, and Love Without Human Context