Marjorie Prime

Lois Smith reprises her stage role as an ailing, 85-year-old widow given the chance to reminisce with her dead husband (Jon Hamm)

Lois Smith reprises her stage role as an ailing, 85-year-old widow given the chance to reminisce with her dead husband (Jon Hamm).

In the near future, the wonders of artificial intelligence can summon up the dear departed as holograms of their past selves.

So Smith’s Marjorie is able to talk to a fortysomething version of husband Hamm, which has been programmed by her daughter (Geena Davis) and son-in-law (Tim Robbins) to offer aid and consolation.

However, even when recalled by a computer the past is never fixed, especially when it involves pain and loss.

Adapted from Jordan Harrison's Pulitzer-nominated play, writer-director Michael Almeyreda's elegantly restrained, superbly acted, thought-provoking film offers plenty of stimulating ideas about grief, memory and the solace of forgetting.