Movie · 2021 · Drama, Science Fiction · 1h 52m · R · English
Curator score: 5.0/10 (20K ratings)
A thought-provoking exploration of love, loss, and sacrifice.
Overview
In the near future, Cameron Turner is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Presented with an experimental solution to shield his wife and son from grief, he grapples with altering their fate in this thought-provoking exploration of love, loss, and sacrifice.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.0/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Metacritic: 66
TMDB: 7.1/10
Director
Benjamin Cleary
Production
Anonymous Content, Know Wonder, Apple Studios
Cast
Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Awkwafina, Glenn Close, Adam Beach, Lee Shorten, Dax Rey, Nyasha Hatendi, JayR Tinaco, Luke Camilleri, Jessica Hayles, Mikayla Lagman, Shema Cayden, Aiden Adejuwon, Ace LeVere
Where to watch
Apple TV Plus
Curator Review
Verdict
A restrained, emotionally sincere sci-fi drama that uses a high-concept clone premise to ask painful questions about grief, identity, and the ethics of self-sacrifice. It’s more moving than mind-bending, powered by a strong lead performance and a grounded tone that keeps the sentiment from tipping into melodrama.
Best for
viewers who like intimate sci-fi with emotional stakes
fans of grief-and-family dramas
people interested in ethical dilemmas and identity stories
audiences who appreciate understated performances over big spectacle
Skip if
you want hard sci-fi with dense worldbuilding
you dislike sentimental or tearful dramas
you need sharp plot twists or a fast pace
you’re looking for a more visually adventurous future setting
Overview
Swan Song is a quiet, polished piece of near-future science fiction that treats its premise with unusual tenderness. Rather than leaning on spectacle, it focuses on the emotional cost of trying to protect the people you love from pain, and on the unsettling idea that love can become a form of control. The result is thoughtful, if not especially surprising.
Worth noting
Mahershala Ali gives the film its center of gravity, playing the role with warmth, restraint, and a kind of exhausted grace. The supporting cast helps keep the story human, even when the concept risks feeling clinical or overly neat. The film’s clean, Apple-like futurism can feel a little airless, but it also reinforces the story’s controlled, melancholy mood.
Bottom line
What lingers is not the mechanics of cloning but the ache of impossible choices. The movie works best as an emotional thought experiment: less about whether the science makes sense than about what a person owes their family, and what it means to leave them with a version of yourself instead of the real thing.
Top Letterboxd reviews
davidehrlich (3★) · 239 likes
It’s hard to believe that Mahershala Ali has never been the lead role in a film before, but Benjamin Cleary’s elegiac “Swan Song” is eager to make up for lost time: Not only does Ali get to play the protagonist in this somberly moving sci-fi drama about a dying man who secretly clones himself in order to spare his family the heartache of living without him, he gets to play him twice.
The original Cameron Turner is a sad-eyed illustrator… more
wersku (4★) · 225 likes
Why does this movie feel like it’s living in its own universe where Apple has pushed its technology down to the molecular level, and we are all part of its DNA. Is that their plan? Or am I going crazy because I’ve been watching nothing but Apple Original movies.
A sad letter to himself...I’m thinking here....Something pulls me toward this film and something pushes me away from it, and I’m not yet fully sure what that is. A brilliant philosophical… more
Rosie✨ (3★) · 159 likes
A complex sci-fi drama that has its sentimental moments but remains engaging. Set in the near future, Cameron, played by Mahershala Ali, is a loving husband diagnosed with a terminal illness. He’s offered an experimental solution by Dr. Scott, played by Glenn Close, to protect his family from the pain of loss: the option to secretly replace himself with a clone. Both Ali and Naomie Harris, who plays his wife Poppy, deliver strong performances. Awkwafina brings some levity in a… more A complex sci-fi drama that has its sentimental moments but remains engaging. Set in the near future, Cameron, played by Mahershala Ali, is a loving husband diagnosed with a terminal illness. He’s offered an experimental solution by Dr. Scott, played by Glenn Close, to protect his family from the pain of loss: the option to secretly replace himself with a clone. Both Ali and Naomie Harris, who plays his wife Poppy, deliver strong performances. Awkwafina brings some levity in a… more
octavia (3★) · 158 likes
pretending this is an episode of black mirror as we haven’t had one in such a long time lol.
Josh Gillam (4.5★) · 156 likes
Terminally ill family man Cameron (Mahershala Ali) decides to take part in a cloning program to spare his wife and son from grief, discovering more about his life in the process, in Benjamin Cleary’s sci-fi drama co-starring Naomie Harris, Awkwafina and Glenn Close.
Despite the high concept premise, the film is told in a very understated, empathetic way, using the sci fi tropes to explore Cameron’s relationships. Like Minority Report, the technology actually feels like it could be developed in… more