Too timid to say what it wants to say. Too artless to be artful. Diffuse and half-formed concepts. It wants to be child pornography, but is afraid to say so. It hides its true feelings by trying to be artsy and conceptual, but gets bogged down between the lie and the truth. It fails as art. It fails as child pornography. It fails as propaganda.
Who is "papa" and why does he have an android daughter? Was there ever a real daughter? And where is "mum"? If he had a real daughter who died and replaced her with this android, why didn't he replace "mum" too? Since he's sexually involved with the child android, are we to assume he was sexually involved with his real daughter if she rever existed? Or is "papa" just some rich pervert who bought a child android? Why can't she remember certain things one moment, but then later remembers them. Are these actual memories, or just "realism" artifacts papa implants in her to enhance the feeling that he's having a loving, sexual relationship with a real daughter? Because we know that's what this movie us trying to sell: The concept that parents can indulge their sexual fantasies with their children in a healthy, loving way.
I think others that have reviewed this movie assume Elli is a replacement daughter for an organic daughter who died. I disagree. Papa is just a broken, single man with an obsession fornaked little girls. In one scene, we see him remove Elli's tongue and vagina in the morning (after a night spent together all night that "mum never would have allowed but doesn't need to know about") and wash them in the kitchen sink.
Why try to hide this message behind artifice and half-hearted artsy-fartsy bulls**t? If you really feel your deviance is nothing to be ashamed of, why then do you seem so ashamed of it? And if you're that ashamed, why air it out in the open? Just go hide in a dark closet with your pedophilia fetish and stop trying to convince us and yourself it's nothing to be ashamed of. You're embarrassing yourself.
