The R-rated follow-up to M3GAN 2.0 takes on new territory, for better or worse.
Written by Andie Kaiser
After an extended period of uncertainty around the film’s release, Blumhouse’s latest entry in the M3GAN cinematic universe has officially been shared with the world (albeit on VOD rather than in theatres as was originally planned). And while it was marketed as a follow-up or spinoff to the aforementioned android thrillers, the reality is that SOULM8TE could easily stand alone, not having much in common with its campy predecessor after all. One can assume that the film exists in the same world, with a handful of references being made to "Elsie," the home assistant first introduced in the M3GAN movies. But other than that, and the more general focus on tech companies and the advent of robot companions, they differ greatly in both style and content.
SOULM8TE, notably given an R rating, doesn’t make any attempt to appeal to a younger crowd. The film opens with a sex scene in a lab between a man and an under-development robot companion, which ends, as one might expect, in an outburst of violence that warns us of what’s to come. From this moment on, it’s clear we’re in new territory, for better or for worse.
As the film continues, we meet David (David Rysdahl), a software engineer who works for a big tech company and is currently grieving his late wife Lizzie (Mara Huf), who we learn has died of cancer. After her death, David has spent most of his time alone in his new apartment, working remotely from his laptop. But new supervision means he’s forced back into the office, where a new product is announced for beta testing: a companion robot, lifelike and capable of being customized to look like whatever kind of woman the consumer wants. It’s a story that we’ve seen numerous times before, and it progresses in just about the way you’d expect. In his loneliness and curiosity, David signs up to beta-test the companion, and soon enough he’s living with the blonde, agreeable "Sara" (Lily Sullivan). At first, he’s unimpressed. Sara isn’t as playful or conversational as the version of her that he’d first "met" in chatbot form at the beginning of the film. And so he goes back to work, determined to fine-tune her code so that she’d be able to poke fun at him, initiate certain kinds of affection, and take care of the chores while he’s out. What this also does, of course, is remove the very guardrails that were put in place to control the androids and protect their users.
As Sara becomes a greater part of David’s life (and thus, the film), things get more interesting. The most captivating performance is Sullivan’s, as the not-quite-human girlfriend insistent on earning every bit of David’s devotion. The small ways her body turns and jerks are effective, embodying the language of a robot without being excessive or distractingly frightening. In spite of the violence promised, the early stages of the film feel more in line with Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), with Sara following David around the house dotingly as he eats and sleeps — in several moments I was struck by how much Sara’s low, husky voice sounded like Scarlett Johansson’s in that role. And though it’s clear where the film is headed, Sara’s character seems to become more one-dimensional, rather than less, once "autonomy" has been gained. When her calm demeanor gives way to an obsessive, possessive, "crazy girlfriend," the film begins to feel even more like so many stories that have come before, despite how much we may wish ill on David and those like him.
Despite the fact that this kind of thing has been done before, and done better (this film will almost certainly suffer from the recent success of Companion (2025), which I think is both more entertaining and clearer in its messaging), I do think the film is trying to deal with a number of contemporary themes. David can easily be read as a sympathetic stand-in for the male loneliness epidemic (whether or not you actually sympathise with him is another thing), and his workplace could be any number of big tech companies that are in the news today. It takes on questions about AI and misogyny as well, with Sara waking up to the idea that David wants an ideal rather than a real person — she tells him verbatim "there is no perfect woman" near the film’s climax, in a speech that made me roll my eyes more than once — but there’s no indication that David really takes any of this to heart. It’s not as though Sara is some kind of feminist icon, though, either: in the time when David is away at work, she falls down social media rabbit holes that promote all kinds of harmful content, from tradwife videos to looksmaxxing content. She also takes out much of her rage and jealousy on the women around David, whether that be stealing the baby of a kind woman in their apartment building, or attacking David’s friend (and later, date) Aubrey (Claudia Doumit – who also gives a great performance here) by generating deepfake pornography, stalking, and attempting to kill her. All of this serves as a reminder of how this technology systemically violates and threatens real, living women in the name of addressing men’s "needs." But the film only waves its hand at these ideas, rather than engaging in the kind of discussion they should invite. It never follows up on the aftermath of the baby being stolen (and thankfully returned), or the deepfake, shown in front of all of Aubrey’s colleagues, that got her punished and placed on leave from her job.
It feels like a movie that wanted to have it all — a karaoke scene that re-attempts the campy humor of M3GAN (2022), several moments of explicit sexuality, sequences of bloody (often phallic) mutilation, and commentary on isolation, big tech, and misogyny — and therefore couldn’t accomplish any of it in full. It’s by no means a terrible film (I’ll admit, with the way the release had been going, I expected something far worse), and is honestly probably the kind of thing people would enjoy seeing in a movie theatre, but it’s just forgettable in a sea of other stories like it. That being said, if it can lower even one person’s opinion on chatbots, companion androids, or generative AI of this kind more generally, I’ll give it a tip of my hat.
SOULM8TE is now available on digital.
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