It’s seemingly with great serendipity how the journey of Ryan Kwanten’s new movie Expired played out. The movie’s director Ivan Sen first pitched the idea to Kwanten eight years ago while they were working together on Sen’s Mystery Road. “I couldn’t help but be struck then,” Kwanten says in our interview, ahead of Expired’s release. “[Sen’s pitch] started off with the sort of typical assassin story, which we’ve all seen, but then it took a very interesting trajectory and developed into this really haunting-type of love story. Ultimately, I felt like it had something to say as to where we, as a species, are headed as well.” Where we’re headed, with respect to Kwanten’s remarks and Expired’s story, is a world in which humans are reliant, to an Olympic degree, on technology for the most natural of human experiences: love and connection.
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In Expired, set in a near-future that is more dystopia than utopia, Kwanten plays Jack, a hitman for hire, who lives a solitary life devoid of joy and excitement, save for the robotic lovers he takes home and the executions he commits, both of which are essentially transactional relationships. It isn’t until he meets April (Jillian Nguyen, Hungry Ghosts), who’s described as a “karaoke geisha,” that he starts to feel something more. However, as Jack grows closer to April, he suddenly finds himself being hunted by mysterious robotic people and, perhaps more seriously, becomes afflicted with some sort of illness that slowly breaks down his body. As a result, Jack turns to Dr. Bergman (Hugo Weaving, Lord of the Rings), a reclusive scientist with a dark past of his own, for help.
This is what’s serendipitous about Expired: the movie’s tell-tale message about technology was something that Sen wanted to capture eight years ago. Even then, it’s clear that the writer-director saw the writing on the wall as the digital world revealed itself to be predominantly uncharted territory, and humans saw it as something for the taking. But with the last few years’ advancements in virtual reality technology, the rise of the metaverse, the pandemic-related isolation and corollary surge in remote working, and the overall collective settlement in the digital plane in which existence and connection is possible — and even fundamental — through an embrace of technology, it seems that Expired’s story is arguably more relevant now than it would have been had it been made eight years ago.
The movie’s scientific accuracy ironically isn’t in the mechanics of the robots Jack takes to his bed or the drones that surveil his targets, it’s how we, as humans, have reshaped our existence for the machine. “Ivan predominantly made movies based in the Australian desert [with a lens on] Indigenous ramifications. And I think [Expired] was a real call to arms for us as a species from an indigenous standpoint — to wake up and realize what we’re doing to ourselves and our planet.”
On Jack’s Relationship with April and Dr. Bergman
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Scientific messaging aside, at the core of Expired are Jack’s relationships with April, Dr. Bergman, and, most significantly, himself. True to Kwanten’s word, the movie pivots in tone and narrative once Jack meets April. Immediately, there’s the instinct to categorize their relationship as the overused romance movie cliché where the rough-around-the-edges man meets a soulful sex worker who challenges everything he’s believed and experienced prior to their acquaintance; however, what’s fascinating about Jack and April’s connection is the simultaneous disconnect that’s happening.
Expired not only reunites Kwanten with Mystery Road director Ivan Sen but with his co-star Hugo Weaving as well. It’s a working relationship that proved beneficial for Jack and Dr. Bergman’s history in Expired. “With Hugo and I, there was a lovely sense of distance [between our characters] that would be better off leaving to when we first meet each other,” says Kwanten when asked about how he and Weaving approached the work together. “I think that sort of played that we don’t know anything about each other.”
On Needing to See Expired in Theaters
In an interview with Heavy Cinema, Kwanten stresses the importance of seeing Expired in theaters. Which makes sense: there’s a Blade Runner-esque feel to the film, with its neon-drenched cinematography and its immersive landscape, that warrants a big-screen experience. “[More] than just the idea that it is on a big screen or on surround sound, which you’re not going to get at home,” says Kwanten when asked about the importance of the theatrical experience for a film like Expired, “there’s something to be said about the idea of sitting down with a complete stranger or a bunch of strangers and sharing this collaborative experience of what [the movie and filmmaker] are trying to give you. The amount of work that goes into making movies, and with a movie like [Expired], the amount of emotion, life, and heart that go into it, I think it deserves an audience [and a chance to connect two strangers] in a forum like [the theater].”
Expired is available in select theaters, on digital, and on-demand on March 18, 2022.
