Other Life 2022

Ren Amari leads a research team at a technology company she co-founded with Sam, an ambitious entrepreneur. They have developed OtherLife, a biologically grounded virtual reality that can implant vivid memories through nanotechnology. A week before the product launch, Ren tests the code on herself under the watchful eye of engineer Byron Finbar. Unknown to them, she also privately tries the system on her comatose brother, Jared, hoping the inserted memories might help him recover. Her father, a professor whose work underpins OtherLife, opposes keeping Jared on life support, while Ren’s personal life with coworker Danny begins to fray under the mounting pressures.

Sam presents OtherLife to investors, pitching a near-instant experience that can feel like days inside the mind while only minutes pass in the real world. He hints at a controversial use: licensing it to a government program as an alternative to prisons, where inmates would be trapped inside their own memories for extended periods. Ren recoils at this idea. She explains the science to Danny, sharing a skiing simulation that feels strikingly real. Danny, intrigued, tries another simulation without Ren’s supervision, unaware that it is the experimental version she designed for Jared. The session ends tragically when Danny suffers a seizure and dies.

A harsh consequence follows: the government is willing to avoid a trial for unlicensed testing and Danny’s death if Ren agrees to one year of solitary confinement inside OtherLife. With few alternatives, she submits. Inside, she is confined to a single room that provides only the basics—water and canned foods—while the outside world carries on. After a full year, the confinement counter mysteriously resets to 001, and Ren breaks down, but in a moment of rage she manages to dislodge a wall section and escape. When she emerges, she realizes she had not escaped into the real world by chance; she had been in a real-world cell all along. She contacts a sympathetic coworker, who reveals that Danny survived.

Ren reclaims her life and discovers that OtherLife has become a major success, expanding to a wide range of applications, including long-term confinement stretching for centuries. Determined to correct the course, she develops a new, more advanced prototype and tests it on Jared. He responds positively yet makes it clear he longs for death, and Ren reluctantly grants him release by unplugging his life support. Soon after, she awakens from the actual simulation, realizing her year-long escape had been a glitch in OtherLife. She keeps this to herself, wary that Sam would weaponize the revelation to suit his agenda.

Recovering from the experience, Ren steps away from the company to confront her father about Jared’s situation and to decide the family’s next steps regarding life support. In reviewing the data with Sam and Byron, Sam notes a brain scan that correlates with Ren’s interactive experience, pressing for cooperation. When Ren refuses, Sam pushes for a second year-long imprisonment, hoping she will trigger the glitch again and reveal how to build truly interactive experiences. Byron reluctantly goes along when Sam frames it as essential. Ren makes another escape, hijacking the simulation and accelerating time so that only minutes pass inside. She then traps Sam in his own year-long ordeal, who suffers a seizure as the clock ticks down. Ren refuses to allow his release until the full 365 days—plus a few extra days—have elapsed, forcing Sam to understand the same torment she endured when the countdown reset.