Like the best of its kind, Lifelike quickly sets up its world, leads you down the path, and then delivers on the experience. In this rather brief short, Helen (Deanna Noe) carries on a conversation with a robotic voice on the other end of the phone (H. Richard Greene, sounding a bit like Ghostface’s dad working customer service) about the “Lifelike” she has ordered.

A “Lifelike” is an android that exactly looks and acts like the person it is modeled after.  Helen seeks one last moment with the man she loves.  Their relationship is never made clear (husband, partner, “the one that got away,” etc.), nor is how he is gone from her life made clear (died? Left her?), but she wants one last night with him, and Lifelike, Inc., like Santa, arrives when she is asleep and drops it (Rick Lundgren) off. The later scene of his awakening plays out while we listen to her earlier conversation ordering and gaining information about her “Lifelike” purchase.  It’s an effective technique, period, but more effective in a short film, as it maximizes the information the audience gains by sharing two timelines at once.  The voice explains, you turn it on by holding its hand, your body heat activates it, but once you do this it is considered a “binding contract” that cannot be reversed (which, technically, is what a binding contract is).

She takes her android into the bedroom and makes love while we hear the voice tell her they promise “closure” and the whole thing feels a bit sinister, especially when we learn the android is free, but, as the voice reminds us, “nothing is ever truly free…”  There is a lovely little button at the end. The whole story contains echoes of Ray Bradbury’s “Marionettes, Inc.” and other dystopian android stories, but also feels quite original.  Kudos to the filmmakers.

Beautifully shot, succinct in story and effect, Lifelike is an evocative little thriller, both well made and dark in execution, that’s worth the time spent watching it.  In fact, it probably took you longer to read this review than you will spend watching it.