When most people think of brain games, they probably think of physics puzzles, math games and memorization. Aurora thinks of when her mother, Ayla, asks her to carry a heavy box across a room using only her mind.
That’s because the two of them are psionics—people who have psychic abilities. And it’s not exactly the life that Aurora wanted since Ayla hardly ever lets her go out into public.
Ayla claims that there are people looking for them—that these people would try to hurt them and take Aurora away if they found her. And so, Ayla’s been homeschooling Aurora and training her to use her psionic powers—both effectively and responsibly—should those people ever find them. But it’s been sixteen years, and Aurora’s no longer convinced that anyone cares about them.
“No one is coming, Mom!” Aurora screams after a particularly frustrating day of training. “You and all of your bulls—, your lessons…I am sick of it!”
It’s enough to convince Aurora to sneak out of her bedroom that night to visit Isaiah, the boy she’s secretly been seeing whenever her mom is away. And Isaiah’s hoping to introduce Aurora to his friends at a party.
But there’s more people present than Aurora’s psionic abilities can handle, and she begins unintentionally hearing every thought each person is thinking about her, overloading her brain. And just when she thinks she might have it under control—
Pop!
Isaiah’s dead on the ground, his jugular burst. And in a flash of light, Aurora teleports away.
And the amount of psionic energy it took Aurora to do that? Well, it might just attract the attention of those people Ayla warned her about.
Though Aurora and Ayla are obviously in disagreement on most issues, it’s clear that Ayla genuinely cares for her daughter and for the people around them. She’s training Aurora to use her powers not only to protect herself but also to protect others.
“When you do what we can do, you make victims of people,” Ayla explains, informing Aurora that power has a way of “diminishing moral senses.” That’s why she has Aurora read books on morality like one called Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism.
And Ayla isn’t faultless, so when she does mess up, she makes up for it.
Various people have psionic abilities, and while they could be the result of some genetic mutation, the movie’s captions often call the use of the powers supernatural, so we’ll unpack them here. Characters use a variety of mind powers, including telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation and astral projection. Psionics can have “surges,” moments in which they cannot control their abilities, releasing large amounts of energy on nearby victims.
None, though when Aurora listens to a boy’s thoughts, it’s clear that he’d like to date her.
The level of violence within Gray Matter is surprisingly graphic for a film with a sixteen-year-old girl as its protagonist. A psionic forcefully compels two police officers to shoot themselves in the head, and we see the blood spray as the men die. (We additionally witness that scene a few more times—including photographs of the bodies lying in pools of blood.) And when Aurora accidentally kills Isaiah, we watch as his jugular vein burst open. Likewise, his death is projected in Aurora’s memories a few times. Another man faces a similar death. A man’s head completely explodes, leaving splatters of blood on Aurora’s face. And when someone is hit by a massive truck, they are eviscerated into a bloody cloud.
Other people get injured, too. A woman is choked. Another person has her head slammed into a counter. A few people are tossed back by psionic powers. People are held in cells against their wills, and it seems their minds have been broken. Aurora is punched in the face. Someone is hit with a flying table. Ayla forces Aurora to the ground with her powers before realizing she’s hurting her.
The f-word is used three times, and the s-word is used 15 times. We also hear the occasional use of “a–” and “h—.” God’s name is taken in vain four times, and one use ends with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is abused twice.
A quartet of high school students drink from a flask. When Aurora begins keeling over in pain, someone asks if she’s “on” something, and another onlooker complains that Aurora is “killing [his] high.”
Ayla hotwires and steals a car. Aurora sneaks out of her home.
Gray Matter is aptly named, and that’s not just because of brains and psionics. It’s because its content is pretty dark for a plot that feels like a lighter young adult superpowered action film.
After a quick action sequence to hook the audience, we’re introduced to a film that pushes forth a generic plot: a child and her parent who struggle to connect but ultimately reconcile by the time the credits roll. The child believes that the parent doesn’t understand her and is too overbearing, and the parent believes that the child is too ignorant of the world to be trusted with more responsibility or autonomy. Rinse and repeat for your next teen sci-fi thriller.
Of course, one of the signs that something is a bit different in this iteration is the heavier language. Early on, we’re treated to a few s-words and an f-word. But roughly a third of the way through the film, we take a sharp turn from the plot that’s so often crafted for younger audiences—and that’s when Aurora accidentally explodes her love interest’s jugular vein, spraying the scene with blood. Then we see more people get killed in blood-splattering ways. And content wise, it’s suddenly no longer the film you thought would be appropriate for your teen.
And though I’ve tried not to talk too much about my personal thoughts on the plot itself, I will say this: the pacing in this film felt strange. I feel it would have benefitted from an extra thirty minutes of world building to allow viewers to explore this world of secretive psionics. And because that was not the case, I was genuinely surprised to find myself over halfway through the film when I felt like little of true substance had occurred. And before I knew it, we were in the climactic less-than-one-minute final battle, and the credits were rolling.
So, what’s the matter with Gray Matter? Put simply, it’s a story that feels better suited for teenagers mixed with crude language and violent content that’s more suited for adults.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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