Anna to the Infinite Power

This movie (and its book counterpart) almost seems prophetic in this day and age. A story that came out in the early eighties, set in the late nineties; dealing human cloning and the moral, ethical, and philosophical consequences. The film itself is a bit poorly constructed (probably due to its shoe string budget) and the acting is thin and amateurish. However, its unusual story was quite unique for its day. Also I find it very fascinating that the world would be contemplating the same issues and at the time period as in this little movie. I say it worth seeing once. Even just to wonder about the possibilities and consequences of cloning.

The story is well-written, but the overall movie suffers from poor directing, acting and cliche characters.

The acting comes to first note. Through the entire film it's as if the actors are reading their lines from boards across the stage. Early Anna comes across as someone trying to portray an annoying brat rather than just an annoying brat. That said, it is interesting to see the actress show some chops as she progresses to her later stages, where she seems more relaxed and normal. I can only guess that comes from either growing experience in front of the camera-- or a personality more suited to her normal person.

But down to the last scene the acting of all seems forced, word-by-word without any improvisation. As I find it hard to believe they'd manage to have that many bad actors by coincidence, I have to believe it's the directing that causes such an amazing phenomena.

The plus side is a story with a reasonable plot, sensible progression, and lack of jump-the-shark stupid moments (common to this type of movie these days). The story held right to the end, without any sudden or unexpected letdowns (even if it did leave things slightly in the air, the possible outcomes were plausible and it was a decent conclusion).

One lack of logic was the climax near the end. Since cloning is not against the law (in the United States; it is banned in some other countries), there was really no reason for what was portrayed in the movie (spoilers withheld). That issue didn't ruin the movie, but it did make astute viewers question the motivation and extreme actions (or intended actions) of some characters. Since all this was done under full disclosure with willing participants, there was no reason for well, the entire last 10 or 15 minutes of plot. That was the one place I noticed where the ball was dropped a little. Nevertheless the story continued of its own right and worked out reasonably well.

Side note: I found it interesting that they used Apple II as their primary computer-on-set, since by 1983 the IBM PC had taken the market by storm. However the Apple was still going strong and had solidly immersed itself in the educational and publishing community (it took IBM some 15 years to break Apple's strangle-hold in those areas), so historically, use of that computer system that was a fairly accurate portrayal and pegs the time during which the movie was made.

I think directing was poor, acting severely lacking. But the story premise was 20 years ahead of it's time. A clone movie dealing with a girl as the heroine, the contextual elements of parentage and coming of age. The bones are there to be a good movie, and scifi that when it was released nothing near it for at least a decade though some argue about the ethics and scientific merit of much of this, it's still about as topical today? I really would like this re-made and I think it would do well.

If you like "As The World Turns" you will like this movie which stars the actress who plays Lilly Walsh. In this movie she is still a child actress but demonstrates that she is a fine actress. The movie is about an experiment dealing with the cloning of a girl. There are a large number of her.

Despite being filmed on a small budget, "Anna to the Infinite Power" is a wonder. Produced, written and performed by a talented cast of newcomers and veteran actors attracted to the story of a young girl, a genius, who has to face the truth of her origins and forge her own identity and place in the world. A terrific and timely film, made with both love and insight.