In his new science fiction dramedy Marjorie Prime, Jon Hamm plays a hologram… and he’s really getting into character. In a neat bit of tie-in promotion, Passage Pictures has partnered with technology startup 8i to turn Hamm into an actual, lifelike, three-dimensional hologram for Sundance Film Festival attendees to interact with. With the #Holohamm (hee) possessing the actual volume and depth of Hamm, visitors to Sundance’s virtual reality and augmented reality will feel as if they’re actually interacting with the actor. Or at least, with his character, Walter Prime.
In Michael Almaryeda’s adaptation of Jordan Harrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the elderly Marjorie resurrects her late husband Walter in order to spend her final days with him. But their interactions are not so simple as wandering down memory lane, not when Walter must draw from Marjorie—and her children—for information on his identity and his place in Marjorie’s life.
“It is amazing to experience the future in the here and now,” producer Uri Singer said in the press release. “When we first started working on the movie, the script dictated that the holograms would be portrayed as a futuristic reality. Making an actual hologram, not only on film but one that can be experienced with VR/AR attests to how present the future has become.”
Here’s an official still of Walter and his son-in-law (played by Tim Robbins), plus the official synopsis:
Marjorie Prime follows eighty-six-year-old Marjorie (Lois Smith) who spends her final, ailing days with a computerized version of her deceased husband, Walter (Hamm). With the intent to recount their life together, Marjorie’s “Prime” relies on the information from her and her kin to develop a more complex understanding of his history. As their interactions deepen, the family begins to develop ever diverging recounts of their lives, drawn into the chance to reconstruct the often painful past. Geena Davis and Tim Robbins round out the all-star cast.
Built around exceptional performances from a veteran cast, Marjorie Prime shines a light on an often-obscured corner in the world of artificial intelligence and its interactions with mortality. Bringing us robustly into the future, Michael Almaryeda’s poetic film forces us to face the question—If we had the opportunity, how would we choose to rebuild the past, and what would we decide to forget?
The film will premiere at Sundance. Here’s a short teaser, plus a trailer from the stage production at Playwrights Horizons (in which Smith also starred):
Marjorie Prime comes to theaters January 23.
