If it is healthy to impose a border between private life and work – especially when you are forced to work from home, the solution to maintain it which is at the heart of the anticipation series Severance, the creation of newcomer Dan Erickson, will look radical and questionable to everyone’s eyes, to say the least. Except perhaps in the eyes of stern bosses who can’t stand the conversations of coffee machines.
At Lumon Industries, we have developed a technique to ensure that we have model employees. Thanks to a little surgery, during which a device is inserted into their brains that separates professional memories from personal memories, all employees have no idea of their daily life during office hours.
They do not know if they are in a relationship and if they have children; they don’t even remember their surname. Outside the office, they know they work for Lumon, but they are unable to say what they are doing there. If they meet in everyday life, they do not recognize each other.
Thus, Mark (Adam Scott), promoted to head of his department after the departure of his friend Petey (Yul Vazquez), is unaware that his eccentric neighbor (Patricia Arquette) is also his ruthless superior, who, like the other executives of the company , did not undergo the separation procedure. When Petey, who has regained some of his professional memory, warns him about Lumon, Mark has no memory of him. As Lumon gets more and more bad press, Mark, who had agreed to undergo the operation in order to forget the death of his wife, tries to find out more about the nature of his work. At the risk of finding a few corpses on his way.
At the office, all is not well, as Mark’s new colleague, Helly (Britt Lower), rebels against the strict rules that all employees must follow. Dean of the department, Irving (John Turturro), troubled since his meeting with Burt (Christopher Walken), who works in another sector, seeks a way to see him more often even if it is against the rules. Following a disturbing event, Dylan (Zack Cherry), who completes Mark’s team, wants to help his colleagues lift the veil on what Lumon is hiding from them.
like rats
In command of Severancewhich is reminiscent of the best seasons of the dystopian series Black Mirror, we find the actor Ben Stiller, who signs six of the nine episodes, and the Irish director Aoife McArdle, best known for her U2 and Coldplay clips, who directs the other three. Having recruited her for the series Escape to Dannemora in 2018, Stiller called on the talented Quebec cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné, who worked with Chloé Robichaud (Sarah prefers running) and Denis Côté (Boris without Beatrice).
With clinical aesthetics and an increasingly suffocating atmosphere, Severance illustrates, not without touches of humor and an offbeat interpretation at times, the alienation of work in a company whose philosophy is not very far from totalitarianism. Strolling through labyrinthine corridors of immaculate white to get to the huge room in the center of which their cubicles are enthroned, Lumon’s employees are like laboratory rats trying to escape their fate.
Apart from a few paintings and a bit of vegetation in certain rooms, everything is cold and dehumanized within the walls of the huge enterprise. Overlooking the hall, a colossal portrait of the founder of Lumon, whose style evokes Soviet imagery, welcomes the staff. On the desks, there are no family photos, no children’s drawings, and no green plants. Glued to their screen, Mark and his team carry out their duties mechanically without understanding the basis for them. Like guinea pigs, they are punished if they step out of line and rewarded if they perform well.
While more and more unusual elements come to thicken the mystery around Lumon, the investigation of Mark and his colleagues thickens as the daily life of each of them is revealed, which makes them even more endearing, and the real place they occupy in the company, which completely changes the idea we had of them. Beyond the risk of losing their skin, the truth that all four are about to discover could be very difficult to accept.
Evoking the sad premise of the shining Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), by Michel Gondry, on a scenario by Charlie Kaufman, where lovers were separated after one had decided to voluntarily forget the other thanks to brainwashing, Severance turns out to be a chilling thriller coupled with a disturbing reflection on the work ethic with Kafkaesque accents. The final scene, where we are bombarded with revelations and new questions, opens the door for an even more breathtaking second season.