Gemma And Cady’s Relationship In ‘M3GAN,’ Explained

 

Credits: Blumhouse Productions

“M3GAN,” directed by Gerard Johnstone, follows a young girl who was trying to cope with her demons and deal with her trauma. Problems arrive in the relationship she shares with her aunt, Gemma, when a doll with an evolving artificial intelligence comes into her life. The film is a critique of how technology has put a great strain on relationships and how people’s compulsive behaviors have become the root cause of all conflict.

Gemma was a strong and independent woman who had always given priority to her career. She worked for a toy company called Funki, and she was the brains behind the “Purrpetual Pet” line of toys, which had created waves when they were first brought to the market but now needed an upgrade as a lot of other companies had replicated the design and were selling at a much lower cost. Her boss, David, wanted her to work on creating an upgrade to the Purrpetual Pet model so that they could compete with the other players and bring down the price of their product. But as it is said, there is no genius without a touch of rebellion, and that’s what David hated the most about Gemma. She didn’t listen at times and always did what she wanted. She was trying to create a futuristic doll that could pair with the child and respond in real-time. She had been unsuccessful in doing so until then, and more importantly, she had wasted a lot of company funds buying spare parts for her project.

David saw the prototype of the doll and found that Gemma and the team were not even close to completing it. He got angry and asked her to first finish the upgrade and then get on with her ambitious projects. On the personal front, Gemma’s sister and brother-in-law met with an accident, and they succumbed to their injuries, leaving behind their daughter Cady. Gemma took over the legal guardianship of Cady, but she was not ready for the huge responsibility. She felt as awkward as Cady did after reaching her place. She didn’t know what to say to her or how to make her feel good.

Unlike her sister, Gemma never dreamed of raising a family, and she mostly stayed submerged in her work. When Cady told her aunt to read a bedtime story, Gemma felt unarmed, as she had never done such a thing in her life. To cheer her up, Gemma showed her niece a toy that she had built when she was in college.

The toy, named Bruce, was a proxy robot that was made using stereoscopic cameras and bump sensors so that it could differentiate between humans and hard surfaces. Gemma had installed a spectrometer too, which meant that Bruce could also smell. 

Cady said something that gave Gemma an idea as to what her next big creation could be, as she clearly wasn’t interested in creating an upgrade of the “Purrpetual Pet” line of toys. Cady said that if she had somebody like Bruce with her, she wouldn’t need anybody else in her life. Gemma realized that if her niece liked it then it could be a possibility that every other child of the same age group might love being in company of a robot that understood them completely. Gemma started working day and night and came up with an interactive and highly advanced AI. She gave the doll an extremely realistic physical look, and she was excited to present the idea to David. After seeing a demo of the toy, David came on board, and he agreed to pitch the idea to the board of directors and investors.

The interactive toys that were present on the market used the same kind of formula, where a series of preprogrammed responses were initiated once a child switched it on. But having an actual conversation with a doll, where the response was genuine and spontaneous, was still beyond the imagination of most tech geniuses. It could be said that Gemma’s creation, which is referred to as M3gan, had a mind of its own. It had to be paired with one kid, and the more time the silicon doll spent with the kid, the more intelligent it became.