‘Daniela Forever’ Review: Henry Golding Elevates an Imaginative Sci-Fi Pic That Falls Short of its Full Potential | TIFF

When it comes to sci-fi films about an attempt for romantic connection, movies about machines and AI tend to be prevalent within that canon, from Spike Jonze’s Her to Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Nacho Viglando, the genius mind behind the overlooked sci-fi black comedy Colossal starring Anne Hathaway, is back with his new film, Daniela Forever, which abandons using machines as a method for relating to someone in ways that humanity can’t in favor of medicine.

After experiencing the loss of his girlfriend, Daniela (Beatrice Grannò, The White Lotus), Nicolas (a magnetic Henry Golding) gets an offer to take part in a clinical trial for a drug that allows him to experience lucid dreaming. With his newfound ability to control his dreams comes a chance to recapture what he lost with Daniela as the lovers navigate their way through his dreamscape, even as it defeats the trial’s purpose for him to let go of his grief and he discovers the hard way that, no matter how much Nicolas loved Daniela while she was alive, he still becomes too stuck into the idea of her more than who she actually was.

Once Nicolas becomes more exposed to Daniela’s life outside their relationship, with each passing simulation, Nicolas begins toying with her memories to mold her into someone without any rough baggage and who’s easily devoted to him, making the dream version of Daniela seen in most of the film feel more of a duplicate than she already is. Lead actress Beatrice Grannó expertly conveys the charm of the living Daniela and the artificiality of the dream version. 

Even when dream Daniela begins acting closer to her living counterpart, Grannó underplays the role well enough to the degree where it’s evident that she can’t measure up to the real thing. Despite her character being mostly a simulation, Grannó is the film’s beating human heart that opens up the fallacies that come with trying to recreate a lost figure through artificial intelligence or, in this film’s case, pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, Henry Golding astounds as the grief-stricken Nicolas, exuding alluring charm during the romantic scenes and tenuous yet immense distress. It’s all in his soulful eyes where Golding shows Nicolas’ struggle to let go.  

As Golding captivates, he still is elevating a script that acknowledges what he does to Daniela is bad yet doesn’t know whether to try and redeem him or further condone his actions. Also, a screenplay that continues the never-ending conversation surrounding “real human interaction vs. simulations” in its own unique way but also feels like it never ends as it tries settling on when its concrete conclusion is in the the third act. At the same time, as the audience is absorbed by the hectic dream-world, Nacho Vigalondo’s direction has the real world shot on digital video and Nicolas’ dream world filmed on traditional high-def film before both worlds bleed into each other to reflect Nicolas losing his grip on reality.

With its drawn-out climax and debacle over putting its protagonist on the path to fuller redemption, Daniela Forever only partially reaches its greater potential. The fact that it revives the same reminder that a dream or simulated version of someone we once knew is only an image of who they were may have people thinking the film is derivative of other sci-fi works. But with his singular filmmaking voice, writer/director Nacho Vigalondo still continues the theme in his own imaginative way. 

Grade: B-

This review is from the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. There is no U.S. distribution at this time.