For a movie that initially tastes like an unexpected treat, it’s especially disappointing that Empathy, Inc.’s third act sours and leaves a bitter aftertaste.
A clever indie suspense that draws on fantasy-tinged notions of virtual reality and identity exchange to create an ingenious tale more in the realm of an intimately-scaled thriller than sci-fi.
Empathy, Inc. has the compactness of a Poe short story or a “Twilight Zone” parable. But its third act surprises aren’t surprising at all. Suspense is created when the audience is a step ahead of the heroine/hero, not five steps ahead.
A killer concept falls frustratingly short of the finish line in Empathy, Inc., a dark morality tale that ambitiously casts contemporary technology in a throwback visual setting.