Hear me out. FX‘s “Devs” brings both Nietzsche and Goethe to mind (stay with me). The polymath and poet behind Elective Affinities once famously wrote, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Goethe, who interrogated human concerns through the lens of science, was speaking to brain chemistry behind passion and romance (still here?), but clearly free will and determinism are pointedly addressed. Nietzsche often spoke to the death of god, and the caves where his “shadow will be shown…for thousands of years,” but the philosopher surely never anticipated the new idols of Silicon Valley and their innovative techno religions.
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This fodder seems to be all be kind of brain stew for one of our own premiere poetic intellectuals deeply fixated on the notions of playing god, cause and effect, and pre-determinism. And one who almost exclusively observes the human condition through the prism of heady science fiction. This writer/director and sci-fi auteur’s—Alex Garland (“28 Days Later,” “Sunshine”) —latest project, the ambitious, deeply gripping FX mini-series “Devs” contemplates false prophets and tech messiahs in Silicon Valley that believe they can predict our future by knowing our past. It’s also about the concepts of free will, determinism, and yes, the choices we made dictated by our passions and love, and the forlorn absence of both (happy to have you if you’re still here).
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Already having addressed the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence with “Ex Machina,” and blown minds with the abstract propensities towards human self-destruction in the sci-fi surrealism of “Annihilation,” Garland kills it once again with “Devs,” a dramatic thriller, that returns to the ideas of A.I., only now developed to quantum proportions. It’s an engrossing series, using Garland’s trademark affinities for blending cerebral cautionary tales with emotional beliefs about empathy and, in this case, the intellectually flawed designs behind trying to play god.
Yet, “Devs” isn’t at all rarefied, challenging brain texture—though it’s there if you want to engage with it—and functions as a captivating thriller with the hint of both sinister menace and mysterious unknowingness. The show, written and directed in its entirety by Garland himself, centers on Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno from Cary Fukunaga’s “Maniac”), a computer engineer who eventually begins investigating Amaya, a cutting-edge quantum computing tech company based in Silicon Valley where she works that has demolished the competition with its advancements (think Tesla times a trillion). One fateful day, her boyfriend Sergei (Karl Glusman from Gaspar Noé’s “Love”) vanishes after starting a new job at the secretive Devs division of Amaya. Initially panicked, Lily, while carefully piecing together the narrative, begins to suspect that Sergei’s disappearance may not be as clear-cut as it seems.
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Spoilers abound everywhere in “Devs,” and some mysteries are better left experienced first-hand, but suffice to say, Garland’s thought-provoking and enthralling series touches upon moments of Russian espionage and stealing intellectual property secrets, a conspiratorial cover-up around a murder and a series of levels of intrigue that take Lily deeper into what the Devs program and its dutiful apostles are up to.
Within, there’s Forest (Nick Offerman), the CEO of Amaya, playing the role of a more maharishi-like Elon Musk-esque tech guru who believes in the purposeful divinity behind his creations, Katie (Alison Pill), Forest’s fiercely loyal and protective second-in-command, Kenton (Zach Grenier), Amaya’s fearsome head of security who will do anything to guard its secrets, plus two high-ranking computer whizzes Stewart (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and young Lyndon (Cailee Spaeny). Jin Ha also features as Jamie, a cyber-security specialist and Lily’s ex-boyfriend and this secretive incubation thinktank is so formidable that, Laine (Janet Mock), a powerful senator starts poking around, asking questions about the Devs system.
Devs is its own kind of religion or cult, with Forest the immortal at the top of this techno-faith, motivated by the dangerous cocktail of hubris, self-belief, and grief, and his devout disciples squirreling away within having drunken from the Kool-Aid and trying to “perfect” the system, but only under the strict rules of his ideas and theories. What eventually reveals itself with the walls of its futuristic chambers is something transportive and transcendent; a kind of predictive projective algorithmic astral intelligence. Or shorter: “Devs” grapples with the principle of determinism, how that challenges free will and how a super-computer is devised to predict the future by understanding the past, even as far back as cave dwellers, contemplating existence with their primitive art.
“Devs” certainly makes some questionable choices casting wise. Offerman as the Maharishi feels dubious at first, as does entrusting Mizuno, who played an unpleasant, strange caricature in “Maniac,” as the unlikely lead (“Devs” does a kind of Hitchcock-ian switch once with protagonists once Sergei goes missing). Thankfully, each actor is quite good in the end, Offerman convincing with his soulfully serene performance, wracked in guilt and remorse, and Mizuno certainly conclusive in her dramatic chops.
Stylistically, “Devs” does so much with so little, creating a trippy and gorgeous minimal futurism from its visuals and carefully curated production design. Garland always makes the most of surrealist, but minimalist cinematography and sound, and the golden compositions of DP Rob Hardy (“Annihilation”) and haunting score (Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow, and The Insects) provide much chilly ambiance, mood, and transfixing atmosphere to the emotional climaxes and revelations.
Nietzsche once spoke of Buddha’s “gruesome shadow” lingering on far past his death, and “vanquishing” the shadow of god. Garland arguably posits that gods may have been reincarnated in the tech valleys of Northern California, but despite all their incandescent influences, are still beholden to the rules of destiny. As are their silhouettes, burnt into the ground by the sun of their own fateful ambitions. [A-]