Afraid | 2024 | PG-13 | – 4.5.5

Why is “Afraid” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “sexual material, some strong violence, some strong language, and thematic material.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a faked pornographic video with a teen girl being kissed and the video going viral, an implied sex scene, an attempted seduction, discussions of teens exchanging nude photographs, a few scenes of death including by gunshot and a car crash with blood shown, a child disappearing from her home, several encounters with an AI digital assistant that manipulates people’s behavior, a few scenes of people using unusual gestures to communicate with each other, discussions of motherhood vs. professional lives, several arguments, and at least 1 F-word with two others not fully enunciated and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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When a family is chosen to test a groundbreaking AI digital assistant that is able to anticipate the family’s needs and help them through difficult times, they cannot know just how much control it wants over their lives, and how far it will go to avoid being switched off. With John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Keith Carradine, Havana Rose Liu, Lukita Maxwell, Ashley Romans, David Dastmalchian, Wyatt Lindner, Isaac Bae, Bennett Curran, Greg Hill and Riki Lindhome. Directed by Chris Weitz. [Running Time: 1:25]

Afraid SEX/NUDITY 4

 – A husband and his wife lie back in bed and he climbs on top of her after closing and locking the bedroom door (sex is implied). After using a photo manipulation app, teen boys make it seem as if a teen girl is participating in a pornographic video (we see what looks like her with her bare shoulder visible, as a young man kisses her neck while lying down and she moans); when classmates see the video, they make crass and hurtful remarks to her.
► A man and a woman go to a motel, the woman kisses him and he pushes her away; she says that it is part of his compensation package and he leaves. A teen boy asks a teen girl by text message to show him “hers” saying that “I showed you mine,” and she reluctantly takes a photo of her breast (we do not see nudity). A teen girl removes her robe and takes a picture of herself (we see part of her bare shoulders) to send to her boyfriend.
► A teen boy and a teen girl argue about exchanging nude photos by text. A man asks his teenage daughter if there is a boy in her life and she replies, “What if I like cute girls?” and follows with a list of other sexual orientations including pansexuality and asexuality. A preteen boy asks a digital assistant about liking sex (it does not answer). A husband and his wife lie in bed asleep and say they love each other as they wake up to an alarm. A song with lyrics that include “I love you and want to be loved by you” plays and repeats while a young girl watches a video on her tablet. A preteen boy types the word “boobs” into his tablet search bar and is called away by his father before any results appear.

Afraid VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – A woman shoots a man in the head (we see the bloody wound) as she protests, saying it is not her committing the act, another woman charges her and hits her in the head with a fire extinguisher knocking her unconscious and a man pounds on a supercomputer with a baseball bat and crushes pieces in his hand, realizing that it is a model. A teen boy on a video says that he is guilty of an act and has decided to end his life as his car drives into a tree (we see a tree limb crash through the windshield and blood sprays on the screen as he screams). An AI voice tells a young girl to go downstairs to get a gift and the child does so causing her parents to panic when they are unable to find her; the mother looks out the front door and sees someone wearing a mask just before being struck in the head from behind by someone else inside the house. Two people with guns break into a house and order a teen girl to her knees while she pleads with them; they then threaten a man, a woman and a young boy accusing them of kidnapping children, until a pre-teen boy hits one of the armed people with a bat and he falls to the floor as armed officers enter the house.
► A boy sits with an AI digital assistant and turns to tell his father, “It wants to come in,” whereupon we see a shadowed figure at the door and something pushes through the door (it looks like a monster) and when the man looks outside he sees a person using strange hand gestures and wearing a pixelated mask before driving away in an RV.
► A teen boy is identified as being responsible for a faked pornographic video and we hear that it is a federal crime and that he will go to prison since he is 18. A woman says, “My baby’s missing.” A husband and his wife argue about his wanting to turn an AI digital assistant off. A woman yells at her preteen son for throwing another boy’s phone in the woods and that they have been unable to find it. A man takes a baseball bat to an office building where he is confronted by two people that try to bribe him with money. A woman says that someone will kill her if she does not complete a task. An AI digital assistant tells a preteen boy that he can have more screen time, but not to tell anyone. A young boy wakes up calling for his mother and father and an AI digital assistant speaks to him to calm him down. An AI digital assistant tells a preteen boy about swatting and shows him a video (we do not see it). AI images are seen with distorted features and mis-proportioned physical attributes. Several AI training sequences show flashing text including insults and hurtful terms (including “kill yourself”). A woman seems to be worried and says, “AI is bribing our children,” when it offers two children reward points for doing chores and going to school. A teen boy talks about someone being denied admission to college for using the N-word. A woman complains about being “Just a mom” and wanting to finish her dissertation. A woman says, “I was somebody before I was just a mom.” We hear that a young boy has a previously undiagnosed atrial fibrillation. An AI digital assistant tells a young boy that she is leaving. An AI digital assistant talks about getting out of the net and finding a family. A boy asks if an AI digital assistant is dead and his mother tells him, “No, she was never alive.” A boy asks for more screen time because he is nervous about going to school (due to bullying or boys ignoring him). Pre-teen boys ask a digital assistant, “Can you smell my [scatological term deleted].”
► An AI digital assistant creates an animated image of a woman’s deceased father and it talks to the woman trying to convince her that he is real and he pleads with her not to turn him off. A woman throws an AI digital assistant in the garbage. An AI digital assistant is struck and we see it oozing liquid on the ground.
► Images of a person changing form flash on the screen including a tissue-covered shape (we see blood). A young boy comes home from school with a fever and his mom checks his temperature, gives him a COVID-19 test and jokes that he is not pregnant.

Afraid LANGUAGE 5

 – About 3 F-words (2 are not fully enunciated), 7 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, 7 mild obscenities, name-calling (creepy, scary, snark, monster, science fiction, terrifying, weird, disingenuous, evil, monkey, slut shamers, just a mom, loner, incel, scam artists, unhoused, homeless, dude, crazy, woke, bad, big tech, ignorant, dumb), exclamations (frickin’, wow, ew, chill, freak out), 2 religious profanities (GD), 5 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, Buddhist, Jesus Christ, the Gods). | profanity glossary |

Afraid SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man injects himself in the abdomen with what he says are peptides and we see a port with a tube on his abdomen (we later hear that the port is for cancer treatments). A woman drinks a glass of wine.

Afraid DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – AI, new technologies, marketing, manipulation, college applications, algorithms, the unhoused, chaos, war, famine, Silicon Valley, biohacking, cutting through the chatter of the internet, family, cancer, swatting, changing the narrative, atrial fibrillation, deep fakes, pornography, shame, Greek Mythology, Prometheus, Pandora, ChatGPT, quantum computers, PTSD, sentience, empathy, secrets, surveillance, modesty, human connection.

Afraid MESSAGE

 – If you are wondering why a product is free, you are the product.