{"id":637955,"date":"2026-10-06T10:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637955\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T10:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:14:08","slug":"artificial-review-andrew-garfield-as-sam-altman-in-openai-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637955\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Artificial’ Review: Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman in OpenAI Saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAndrew Garfield<\/a> is now in his early 40s, but when he lollops around with his rubber limbs flapping every which way and a happy-go-lucky smile plastered across this face \u2014 he\u2019s like a goofy Pied Piper trailed by enchanted tech bros \u2014 you might swear he\u2019s a teenager. That makes it diabolically clever of Luca Guadagnino<\/a>, a gay director never shy about exploring queerness, to cast OpenAI CEO Sam Altman<\/a> as the \u201cdemon twink\u201d archetype. Whatever sorcery the makeup or effects department has performed to put the glint of sociopathic madness in Garfield\u2019s eyes, it works.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut what makes Artificial<\/a>, a two-decade chronicle of machine learning and technological heedlessness, so riveting is the balance provided by Yura Borisov<\/a> \u2014 more than making good on the promise of Anora<\/a> \u2014 as Soviet-born AI trailblazer Ilya Sutskever. Borisov\u2019s brainy, tender, deeply contemplative performance lends an anchoring humanity to a film that might otherwise have curdled into sourness and despair \u2014 though there\u2019s plenty of reason for that. Guadagnino and screenwriter Simon Rich mold the material from dark humor through technocratic giddiness to sobering horror.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tArtificial\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tA sneaky gut punch.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: New York Film Festival (Main Slate)
Release date: Friday, Dec. 25
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Mark Rylance, Cooper Hoffman, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O\u2019Dowd
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Screenwriter: Simon Rich
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated PG-13,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2 hours 20 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tHumorist and former SNL writer Rich\u2019s clear-eyed, propulsive script starts in 2003 at the University of Toronto, when Ilya knocks on the door of Geoffrey Hinton (Mark Rylance<\/a> at his soft-spoken, eccentric best), a professor whose pioneering work on artificial neural networks would earn him the \u201cGodfather of AI\u201d title \u2014 and a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt first Geoff shoos Ilya away, giving him a research paper to study and discuss the following week. But when the 17-year-old Russian returns what seems like moments later with a solution to significantly advance the theories outlined in the paper, the professor finds himself with a new research partner. Within 10 years, Geoff, Ilya and another graduate student, Alex Krizhevsky (Fedor Fedotov), have designed the first image-recognition neural network, which they sell to Google for $44 million, joining the company as part of the deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn that early stage of AI development, Professor Hinton is already wary of the potential risks, causing him to cut short a pitch from a Chinese bidder who gets excited about possible defense applications like automatic drones.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, in Silicon Valley, Altman and his buddy Elon Musk<\/a> (a hilariously weird Ike Barinholtz<\/a>, even his awkward gait announcing his self-importance) commiserate over losing out to Google, though neither of them will be squeezed out of the AI race so easily. Musk hires AI engineering wiz Mira Murati (Monica Barbaro<\/a>) at Tesla, while Altman brings Ilya into the fold with a sizeable investment stake. Geoff warns Ilya to moderate his projections, emphasizing the need for safeguards, but the idealistic Russian is swept up in the vast potential of AI \u2014 to solve the climate crisis, cure cancer, even save humanity from itself.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dizzying evolution of AI picks up speed when Ilya gets Sam worked up about next-level AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, theoretical technology with human-level cognitive capabilities. Sam is naturally seductive as he sells his vision \u2014 which is really Ilya\u2019s \u2014 on AGI controlled by scientists and not by government or moneymen. Yeah, right. \u201cDon\u2019t you see, we\u2019re the only ones sitting in the future?\u201d enthuses Sam at one point. \u201cIt\u2019s exhilarating!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2016, they launch OpenAI out of the San Francisco apartment of Greg Brockman (Cooper Hoffman), a software engineer who is perhaps the most obnoxious \u2014 and there\u2019s stiff competition \u2014 of a bunch of tech bros constantly fist pumping and popping champagne and shouting triumphantly about every breakthrough. One of the first of those is when their AI program teaches itself to beat the machine in a notoriously difficult video game. (I swear, after repeat exposure to these dudes chanting \u201cFeel the AGI,\u201d I was ready to charge up a flamethrower.)<\/p>\n

\n\tA reshuffle after they decline Musk\u2019s offer to join Tesla lands Mira at OpenAI, where she wins over Ilya with talk of the benefits to medicine, science and communications, along with the fact that Radiohead\u2019s \u201cParanoid Android\u201d is her favorite song. Mira believes advancement in their field will come through human-AI interaction. But Sam believes it will come through partnering with Microsoft for funding, overruling Ilya\u2019s ethical concerns with a faux sincerity that you start to believe even he thinks is genuine. \u201cWe\u2019re doing this for the benefit of humanity!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs development accelerates, the neural network reveals the capacity to lie, which leaves Ilya disillusioned more than anything: \u201cI thought we were doing this to make AI smarter and better. But what if it makes it just like us, only worse?\u201d Ilya\u2019s urging to slow down and observe the safety protocols merely result in Sam nudging him aside, along with Mira for a time.<\/p>\n

\n\tProfessor Hinton, who exited Google some years earlier over a philosophical divide, sums up what\u2019s to come when he says, \u201cThe question isn\u2019t \u2018How can this go wrong?\u2019 It\u2019s \u2018How could it not?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s around this point that Guadagnino begins slowly tightening the screws, almost imperceptibly shifting into a mode adjacent to psychological horror. This is one of the director\u2019s most controlled films, as he works with the same sort of expediency and finesse employed by Altman to win over \u2014 and sometimes discredit \u2014 doubters. The ultimate effect is chilling.<\/p>\n

\n\tGarfield plays Sam as a charming villain, capable of talking himself back into the leadership position even after he has been fired by the board for shady dealings. It\u2019s easy to imagine the portrayal of Altman being a key reason Amazon MGM orphaned the film<\/a> (until Neon snapped it up<\/a>), given the fraternity among tech billionaires. The $50 billion deal Amazon signed with OpenAI was likely the deciding factor. <\/p>\n

\n\tAudiences unaware that Altman is gay might pick up on subtle hints in Garfield\u2019s performance, before Musk jokes about it during a dinner scene or a boyfriend is finally seen well into the film. The way he sweetens his voice and shoots the briefest of slutty glances at a hot blond waiter while ordering vodka shots is an amusing tell.<\/p>\n

\n\tSadly, we don\u2019t get to see Altman allegedly meeting his future husband in Peter Thiel\u2019s hot tub. But after his sexuality remains in the background for most of the movie, there\u2019s a real eye-opener of a scene in which he returns to his swanky Napa compound, where his partner is clipping shrubs in the garden while various beautiful boys are draped around the pool and downstairs there\u2019s a kind of high-tech bunker with amply stocked gun cabinets. The characterological contradictions in this scene alone speak volumes about who Sam Altman is.<\/p>\n

\n\tBarbaro is strong as always, though \u2014 even if Mira speaks up frequently and seems unintimidated in the phallocentric environment \u2014 the actress could have been given more to do. Rylance is a joy to watch, even when indulging in some familiar tics; Barinholtz steals every scene he swaggers into; and an almost unrecognizable Jason Schwartzman<\/a> has poignant moments as a man who fled the tech industry when he saw the writing on the wall and, judging by his unruly tangle of hair and straggly beard, would now appear to be homeless.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the craft side, the movie never feels too slick; there\u2019s an agreeable looseness to its pacing, even at its zippiest, and a crisp unfussiness to Malik Hassan Sayeed\u2019s cinematography. Guadagnino has always been skilled in his choice of music (Sufjan Stevens\u2019 alt-pop in Call Me by Your Name<\/a>, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross\u2019 pounding EDM in Challengers<\/a>). Artificial is no exception, with Blur frontman Damon Albarn\u2019s energized electronic score and songs working in concert with Marco Costa\u2019s fluid editing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis ranks among Guadagnino\u2019s best work, its dry humor lulling us into a relaxed state of enjoyment before the sword comes down on the scary reality we\u2019re now facing. Even if AI developments are coming so thick and fast that no movie could possibly keep up, Guadagnino and screenwriter Rich have made a provocative feature that feels precision-targeted for this moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of swords, Sam actually carries one around his San Francisco apartment while schmoozing with reporters over his blamelessness in the OpenAI ouster. It\u2019s not hard to imagine this guy thinking of himself as being on some kind of valiant crusade. His ego is in exact inverse proportion to Ilya\u2019s, which is part of what makes Garfield and Borisov play so beautifully off each other. Sam maintains that \u201cthe future is inevitable,\u201d now that they have opened Pandora\u2019s box, but in the same breath spouts the ultimate in vapid tech-speak: \u201cWe\u2019re all just NPCs in this cosmic video game.\u201d If that\u2019s the case, could someone please unplug it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Garfield is now in his early 40s, but when he lollops around with his rubber limbs flapping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[33071,11026,350,146,192364,85,46,177629,5988,205020,41724,397,11571,285067,3000,237625],"class_list":["post-637955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-andrew-garfield","tag-artificial","tag-elon-musk","tag-entertainment","tag-ike-barinholtz","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jason-schwartzman","tag-luca-guadagnino","tag-mark-rylance","tag-monica-barbaro","tag-movies","tag-new-york-film-festival","tag-new-york-film-festival-2026","tag-sam-altman","tag-yura-borisov"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}