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Ashley Zukerman in a scene from In Vitro.Credit:Sydney Film Festival

Cloning is the question under analysis inIn Vitro,a low-budget Australian thriller set on a remote and rather spooky cattle farm in an unnamed part of the country.

It’s the home of Layla and Jack (Talia Zucker and Ashley Zukerman),a young couple who at first seem happier than they should given their depressing circumstances.

Their farmhouse is bare of anything that could lend colour or comfort and the biggest of their barns is equipped with a mysterious-looking tank monitored by an elaborate series of dials and alarm systems. Jack,it turns out,has received government funding for an experiment in cloning cows,and it’s not going well. His latest creation is about to expire,and she’s not the first.

The mood darkens and claustrophobia sets in fast – for Layla and for me. She wants desperately to take time off and visit the couple’s young son,who is in boarding school,and Jack is reluctant to let her go. Then comes the key revelation:Jack’s cloning ambitions have gone far beyond livestock.

Ashley Zukerman and Talia ZuckerCredit:Sydney Film Festival

Replicants with human sensibilities and sensitivities have been making their mark in movies since Ridley Scott turned Philip K. Dick’s novel,Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,intoBlade Runner,andIn Vitro is faintly reminiscent of Australian director Garth Davis’sFoe (2023),which had Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan as another young couple dealing with the influence of replicants on their emotional lives.

This one has a much pacier narrative which leaves no time for the kind of ruminations that slowedFoe down to the point where you didn’t much care any more. The second part turns into an extended chase sequence which is engineered to make the most of the bleak and lonely landscape surrounding the farm,and it has enough twists to delay your inevitable questions about the increasing number of loose ends.

Zukerman,who starred in the ABC TV political dramaThe Code (2014),is impressively alarming as the febrile Jack,who is trying desperately to maintain the illusion that his actions make sense. And Zucker,who co-wrote the script,has such a physically demanding role that she’s to be applauded just for staying on her feet. Of course there’s more. She’s the one who has to cope with the consequences of the big twist at the end,when the script finally addresses its main theme:whether replicants could eventually display as much – if not more – sensitivity than their human creators,which is not a new thought. Remember Rutger Hauer’s great “tears in rain” speech at the end ofBlade Runner?

By the end of this story,however,the unanswered questions can no longer be ignored,which is a pity because the inconsistencies undermine what is basically a very smart idea.

In Vitro is in cinemas now.

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