Metro, October 2022
The old adage of video games struggling to convert to compelling televisual or filmic content gets a proper stress test in The Peripheral. Within a few minutes of this adaptation of William Gibson’s science fiction thriller, our heroes are plugged into a hyper-realistic VR shoot-‘em-up. It’s neatly done, but utterly lacking in peril. And then something really intriguing happens…
It’s 2032 and siblings Flynne (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Burton (Jack Reynor) are holed up on a backwoods American cabin, part of a world feeling scarily like a dystopian extension of our own. They’ve been sent a new ‘game’, plug in, and end up in a gloomy, eerily quiet London in 2099 dominated by giant – and slightly unconvincing – statues, with a mysterious mission to complete. Except… you quickly get the sense that these players might actually be there. And when strange characters start arriving in the earlier timeline to take out Flynne, it all starts to get very Terminator.
Actually, it feels more like a (very) adult His Dark Materials, the portals from one world to another impacting on the fortunes of a female saviour-type figure. It also has that series’ emotional and social heft too; the first episode is genuinely unsettling as a projection of where our ultra-connected world might take us, and there’s some really nice work from Moretz in making her character feel convincing and believable in a virtual world. Then the mood will flip to a really involving gun-fight; it feels like The Peripheral gets the balance of action, adventure, speculative fiction and human drama just right in its early phases.
Which is why it’s slightly annoying that half-way through episode 2, The Peripheral loses its nerve somewhat and stumbles into exposition. On trying to explain why Flynne appears to be actually in 2099, one of the mission leaders concedes “It can all be rather confusing.” All of which will prompt nods of agreement from anyone watching – but the writing here needs to give far more credit to viewers who should by now be more than engaged.
Still, there’s enough intrigue in these early episodes to suggest this might be a minor misstep. Ready yourself for The Peripheral, Player One.
