The Artifice Girl review – talky AI sex-crime drama asks the big questions

This debut feature dissects the ethical dilemmas that arise when an AI is used to entrap paedophiles, but it fails to translate its ideas into a cogent argument

Probing the ethical implications surrounding the use of AI, Franklin Ritch's debut feature hinges on a high-concept premise: an entirely digital avatar of a young girl named Cherry (Tatum Matthews) is used as bait to trap paedophiles in online chatrooms. Without the signature spectacle of the sci-fi genre, The Artifice Girl is a markedly low-key and small-scale endeavour, steeped in philosophical musings that ultimately seem stagey rather than cinematic.

Divided into three chapters spanning decades, the film moves through a series of single locations. It starts in a police interrogation room where Ritch's Gareth, Cherry's creator, is questioned by Deena (Sinda Nichols) and Amos (David Girard), members of a taskforce combatting child sexual abuse. Once Gareth reveals Cherry is a virtual being, concerns arise as to whether she can meaningfully consent to interacting with men on a daily basis. As Cherry grows increasingly sentient, the same talking points are reiterated in the second section of the film, as Gareth advocates to transfer Cherry's intelligence into a physical form.