Rob W. King‘s Distorted (Mind’s Eye, 6.22) is a paranoid thing (obviously) that may be insubstantial. It’s certainly familiar. The general idea seems to be “beware of any kind of big schmoozy sell because there’s always a malevolent agenda.”

If, upon arriving at a new upscale apartment complex, some red-haired guy were to greet me with a repulsive salesman’s smile, open his arms in a well-practiced manner and say, “Welcome to 21st Century living, the ultimate in comfort and tranquility”…if that were to happen, I would say “thanks but no thanks”, that I’m a 20th Century guy who likes to keep things simple and familiar, and that I generally avoid any kind of “ultimate” experience of any kind.

Christina Ricci and John Cusack, fine, but I don’t like Brendan Fletcher, who plays Ricci’s husband. He’s too short, for one thing, and I don’t like his beard. His big previous credit was a supporting role in Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s The Revenant but I don’t remember his performance and I’ve seen that film three times.

Boilerplate: A 32-year-old woman (Ricci) suffering from bipolar disorder comes to suspect the proprietor of the state-of-the-art “smart apartment” she and her husband (Fletcher) just moved into is using the building’s residents as unwitting guinea pigs for a “synthetic telepathy” brainwashing plot with dire global ramifications.