The Phoenix Project (2015)
Who's it for?: Fans of psychological science fiction drama
Who made it?: Ironwood Gang
Where is it?: Amazon
Length: 1hr 32 min

Conceptually, The Phoenix Project is a great statement about the balance between science and humanism.  The questions of "Can we reanimate a body?" and "Should we?" are separated here by iterations that increase the hope and excitement about this goal and then leave them pondering ethics in medical science.

Trigger warning: This film contains depictions of self harm in depression.  It doesn't have grindhouse levels of gore, but a few moments are potentially emotionally triggering if you or a loved one live with depression.

The acting performances are effectively competent in the team of out-of-a-garage scientists.  Corey Rieger plays project leader Perry Frank as a mercurial classic horror film control freak genius, and Orson Ossman adds some lighter emotional moments that offer a break from suspense, invite viewers to root for the Phoenix Project Team, and inspire empathy when machines or humans break.  Andrew Simpson as Devin Fisher conveys that this project is bigger than him and his personal stake is important to a degree that threatens his mental health.  David Pesta as Ampersand Garner did not leave much of an impression, but emoting less makes him rather more convincing as a scientist and gives him a Harold Ramis-like quality. His puzzle solving of a puzzle with all white pieces seems symbolic of the difficulty of ordering and manipulating the pieces involved in scientific research.

The one negative factor is the slow pacing with many similar shots of the guys archiving their project notes.  My attention span for the research documentary style of storytelling lasted for approximately 45 minutes, or up through the team's excitement at their first successful test.  As conflict increases between the team my attention wandered as Carter wandered from the team.  Devin's part of the story was important and I did follow those beats with my emotional engagement onward to the conclusion.  I think I was least interested in the argument between Perry and Ampersand around one hour to 1:07:00:00 in, which should have been fairly exciting but had some slow silent scenes with music around it that dragged it down somewhat to emphasize the stress under which the guys placed themselves.

Still, this film is effective in stitching together easily accessible locations into one setting while psychologically taking us out of the setting to ponder the greater implications of the team's research.  I never totally lost track of what was going on and the ending left me emotionally moved and continuing to yearn for there to be more human compassion in the sciences. 

I look forward to seeing more films from Ironwood Gang!