A philosophy class playing out moral quandaries makes for a fun sci-fi fable in theory, but poor acting and flawed logic let it down in practice
John Huddles’s sci-fi thriller unintentionally succeeds in replicating the exact experience of playing “would you rather?” with a friend in a pub, as in it starts out with vague philosophical questions but ends up being utterly ridiculous. And just like the silly game, for the right viewers The Philosophers could be quite a fun watch, despite the sub-par film-making.
The film opens with a sweet love scene between Petra (Sophie Lowe) and James (Rhys Wakefield), shot with an awful Vaseline-like sheen that plagues the entire film’s cinematography. Petra and James meet on a philosophy course, which, for some reason, takes place in
Indonesia – and yet most of the students are white. For the final class, their professor Mr Zimit (James D’Arcy) proposes some light role play: he devises an extreme situation where the students face an apocalyptic event and must decide who earns a place in the safety bunker. The sci-fi elements kick in as the film sets these thought experiments into motion and showcases various scenic Indonesian locations.