Armed with a unique premise and some thoughtful ideas, Noah Hutton’s 2020 film Lapsis is a sharp piece of job-hell science fiction that takes a shot at exploitative casual labour and the gig economy. The world of Lapsis is almost identical to ours but with one significant difference: the advancement of quantum computing, which has revolutionised society.
Quantum trading is a huge business and, to support it, an equally huge infrastructure must be set up. Enter the cablers: a casually employed workforce who trek through the forests of upstate New York, armed with only a GPS device and a spool of cable, to connect quantum trading nodes situated throughout the countryside.
Ray (Dean Imperial) works as a delivery driver to support his younger brother, Jamie (Babe Howard), who suffers from a form of chronic fatigue syndrome known as omnia. To get Jamie into a highly regarded treatment centre, Ray needs fast cash – and there is good money to be made laying quantum cable. Ray’s acquaintance Felix (James McDaniel) offers him a “cabling medallion”, which licenses Ray to do the work in exchange for a cut of his wages.
Ray begins work for CBLR, who keep their employees on a short leash, pitting them against robot cablers that are designed to pressure workers into optimal performance. The robots will literally pick up the slack and steal routes if employees progress too slowly. On one route, Ray meets Anna (Madeline Wise) and learns of a nascent labour movement seeking to disable the robot cablers and force management to the negotiating table.
There’s something joyfully surreal about Lapsis’s lo-fi sci-fi. The collision of high-tech concept with low-tech execution makes it feel somewhat at odds with itself. But it is quite the achievement to make the science fiction believable in a movie where the evidence of said technology is little more than a roll of cable and the surface level is simply people hiking in the woods.
The incongruity of cutting-edge technology placed slap bang in the middle of nowhere is never more apparent than with the massive, metallic cubes the cablers are required to connect. They are completely out of place in the natural world and their strange, monolithic presence brings to mind the obsidian rectangles from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But where Kubrick’s masterpiece implied a technological utopia, Lapsis suggests the opposite.
Because Lapsis is telling us the age-old story of wealth created off the back of a labouring class. Interspersed throughout the movie we see excerpts from smug corporate videos extolling the virtues of flexible work models while happily ignoring the erosion of their employees’ rights.
Cablers are forbidden from taking unauthorised rest breaks or deviating from their routes; there are parallels to present day, amoral workplace practices where retail workers are denied chairs or call centre operators are allotted timed toilet breaks. CBLR cracks down on robot tampering to suppress a potential strike, and this too feels very much in line with notoriously union-phobic big tech companies. If our world were to be changed by quantum computing tomorrow, it’s hard to imagine it would unfold that differently to Lapsis.
Ray’s story is as absorbing as the ideas it’s wrapped up in. His determination to help his brother brings him into areas he is unfamiliar with, both physically and ideologically. Ray’s belief in the American dream is challenged and he is drawn into the mystery at the heart of the film: who is the original owner of his cabling medallion?
Lapsis’s simple, unassuming approach proves that with the right idea (and several hundred metres of electrical supplies) you don’t need millions of dollars or flashy special effects to make compelling and thought-provoking science fiction. Imagine that.
Lapsis is streaming on Kanopy and SBS On Demand. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
