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Vesper(2022)
IFC Films Sep 30, 2022 | Limited
Struggling to survive with her father after the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, 13-year-old Vesper must use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the future.
Releases
Original Release | Sep 30, 2022
Box Office
Results
$22,949
$49,493
$1,621,372
$1,670,865
Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: Lithuania,France,Belgium,United Kingdom
Language: English
Showtimes
Your Location or
(U.S. Only)
Summaries
Plot Summary
- Humanity tried to prevent the impending ecological crisis by investing massively in genetic technology. It failed. Engineered viruses and organisms escaped into the wild. They wiped out edible plants, animals and large populations of humans. An oligarchy now thrives in enclosed cities called 'citadels' while everyone else struggles to survive. For food, people rely on seeds traded by the citadels. However, these are coded to produce only one harvest.The people outside of the citadel must find food and resources on their own. The citadel gives them modified seeds that require a special process to be made fertile. Only the scientists of the citadels know the details of this process. Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) is a 13-year old girl who lives in a house in the forest with her father Darius (Richard Brake) who is paralyzed. Darius can only communicate by using a drone that looks like a floating robot head. He uses the drone to accompany Vesper in her daily routine while his real body stays in bed. Vesper conducts experiments in an abandoned lab on bio-hacking the seeds to make them grow without the process from the citadels.A year ago Vesper's mother left to be part of a group of people called The Pilgrims. They are scavengers and drag the junk they collect (they never real their face and they wander alone till they die). Vesper's uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan) lives not far away. He manages a sort of orphanage that he uses to extract blood from the children and sell it to the citadel. Jonas also owns beings called Jugs (Melanie Gaydos), artificial humans made with the sole purpose of being a slave-work force. Vesper sells her own blood to Jonas to get supplies and parts for her generator that keeps Darius alive. Jonas wants Vesper to become a breeder, but she refuses. Jonas tries to stiff Vesper by refusing her the bacteria promised for the blood, so Vesper breaks into Jonas's sheds and steals some bacteria (as fuel for the generators) and also some seeds.One day a citadel ship crashes nearby and Vesper finds a young woman survivor, Camellia (Rosy McEwen). Vesper takes her home and heals her wounds. Camellia promises to take Vesper and her father to the citadel if they can find the other passenger of the ship, a man named Elias (Edmund Dehn). However, when Vesper goes to check she finds that Jonas is also there. Jonas kills Elias and suspects that there was another passenger on the ship. Vesper does not reveal Camelia's presence in her home. Vesper decides to communicate with the citadel so that they can come and pick up Camellia but the only transmitter is with Jonas. She shows Camelia her greenhouse, where she conducts her bio-genetic experiments to breed plants. Camelia reveals that Elias is the head of synthetic biology at the citadel and would love Vesper's work. Vesper sneaks into Jonas's farm, but this time she is caught. She lies and says that she came for what Jonas owed her. Jonas lets her go. On her way back, Vesper finds the body of one of Jonas's orphans who helped her steal the seeds the last time around. When Vesper reveals to Camellia that Elias is dead, the woman mourns him deeply. Vesper realizes that Camellia isn't human, she is a very advanced Jug (she has a cut on her back, just like all other jugs), one who looks exactly like a human and has emotions. Elias is her creator, but making a sentient Jug is a crime, and so he and Camellia needed to escape. They were going to another citadel where Elias had negotiated a refugee status. This is why Elias never sent an SOS before his ship crashed. Vesper uses the seeds stolen from her uncle Jonas' farm for an experiment involving samples from the synthetic Camellia. Camellia plays a tune from a musical instrument that causes the "locked" bacteria in the seeds to unlock. Vesper assumes she found a way to "unlock" the Citadel seeds and make them fertile so they will never starve again. Camellia says that Elias did this intentionally to end the hegemony of the citadels over the food supply.Jonas comes to the house and finds out about Camellia and that she is a jug. Vesper and Camellia manage to overpower him. Vesper makes a deal: If he leaves them alone he can have the seeds and enough food. Jonas goes back to his place and calls the citadel, revealing to them about Camellia. Soldiers from the citadel arrive and kill Jonas before going to Vesper's house. Camellia and Vesper run while Darius stays behind and holds off the soldiers by blowing up the house's reactor. Camellia and Vesper fight off a few Citadel soldiers and Camellia realizes that they will never stop until they get her. Camellia leaves Vesper unconscious and allows the soldiers to take her. Before that, she tells Vesper that she has the seeds and that she can change the world with them.Deeply saddened, Vesper buries the altered seeds, believing there's no use for them in a world without her loved ones. But when a group of Jonas' kids find her, Vesper changes her mind. Vesper and the children journey to a makeshift tower built by the Pilgrims. There she finally takes the seeds out and lets the wind spread them.
Storyline
- After the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed father, meets a woman with a secret who will force her to use her wits, strengths and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of having a future. After an ecological catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions renders the Earth an inhospitable planet, 13-year-old Vesper finds herself burdened with a nearly impossible task. But there is no hope for the future when home is a strange world. And then, the young scavenger makes an eye-opening discovery while foraging for food in the hostile forest. Now, as Vesper puts her razor-sharp skills to good use to unearth a well-hidden secret, a pressing question emerges. Is this unexpected breakthrough humankind's last chance of survival? — Nick Riganas