We’ve seen it all when it comes to mid-life crisis movies: the red sports cars, the torrid affairs with the secretary, the sad little man staring out his suburban window wondering where his life went while his sprinkler system malfunctions in the background. And then along came Auggie, a small 2019 indie drama that asked: what if your midlife breakdown didn’t involve a Corvette or an affair, but instead a pair of augmented-reality glasses that serve up a virtual girlfriend with the body of a model and the personality of Siri after a few cocktails?
Yes, that’s the premise. And against all odds, it works—not because the technology is believable (it’s not; this film thinks holograms are as accessible as a toaster) but because Richard Kind sells the hell out of it. This is the man you’ve heard voice a thousand side characters in Pixar films, the guy you think of as comic relief, and suddenly here he is carrying a serious drama about loneliness, temptation, and digital companionship. And he’s great. Like, unfairly great. Kind brings a warmth and pathos to Felix (the sad sack at the center of this story) that another actor might have turned into parody. Instead of smirking, we’re squirming—because the awkwardness is too real.
Richard Kind, Dramatic Heavyweight
Watching Kind in Auggie is like discovering your goofy uncle has been hiding Daniel Day-Lewis-level chops this whole time. He doesn’t play Felix as a leering creep, though the temptation is right there in the script. Instead, he leans into a slow crumble: the forced smiles at his daughter’s milestones, the quiet dread at retirement parties, the awkward chuckles that mask the fact that he’s wondering if his best years ended with Reagan’s first term. It’s not just a performance—it’s a cautionary tale wrapped in khaki slacks.
When Felix slips on those Auggie glasses and Christen Harper materializes as the holographic dream woman who looks like she stepped off the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue, Kind doesn’t leer. He blushes. He shifts in his seat. He’s embarrassed at being seen with her—even though no one else can see her. The guy is so good at playing discomfort you almost want to buy him a beer, pat him on the shoulder, and tell him everything will be fine (it won’t).
Enter Christen Harper, AKA “Augmented Aphrodite”
And then there’s Christen Harper. Look, let’s get this out of the way: Harper is ridiculously pretty. The kind of gorgeous that makes you wonder if casting her was unfair to the audience, because of course Felix is going to neglect his wife and daughter once a literal goddess manifests in his living room. Harper glides through the film like a mirage—equal parts seduction and temptation—never overplaying the role but always making it clear she is not real.
What makes Harper’s performance so smart is that she plays Auggie like a customer-service chatbot wrapped in smiles that Felix dreamed about but never saw. She’s attentive, yes, but also slightly vacant. It’s the kind of emptiness that’s both intoxicating and unnerving. She’s not here to fall in love with Felix; she’s here to give him exactly what he thinks he needs until he’s hollowed out from the inside.
The Horror of Convenience
That’s the genius of Auggie. On paper, it’s a straight-faced sci-fi indie about augmented reality. But underneath, it’s a horror film about convenience. You don’t need to put in the work of a real marriage when you can summon an on-demand, eternally patient, breathtakingly beautiful woman who literally exists to please you. Felix doesn’t stand a chance. And really, neither would most people.
The film doesn’t go full Black Mirror with its tech critique. It’s gentler, more melancholy. But the horror sneaks in anyway: the long silences at dinner with his wife, the way his daughter sees him distracted at her moments of triumph, the pathetic image of a grown man sneaking off with glasses to chat up a hologram in his car. It’s not gory horror. It’s sad horror. It’s “Oh God, is this where we’re all headed?” horror.
Sleazy? Not really
Here’s where the dark humor comes in: Auggie is essentially about an older man getting catfished by a product he bought. That’s it. He’s in a love triangle with his wife and a pair of glasses. It’s pathetic, and the movie knows it. Kind leans into that with tragicomic precision. You don’t watch Felix flirt with Auggie thinking, “Wow, this is hot.” You watch him and think, “This is the saddest man alive and also maybe my future.”
There’s sleaze in the setup—the fantasy girl who never ages, never argues, and never denies sex. But the film avoids turning Harper into a mere sexbot cliché. She’s more like a Rorschach test: Felix projects his longing onto her, and in doing so reveals just how empty he feels. That’s darker than any scene of holographic hanky-panky could be.
Why This Works as a Good Movie (Despite Everything)
Here’s the thing: Auggie should not work. It’s an indie film with a small budget, a premise one click away from parody, and a cast mostly unknown. And yet, it does but only for awhile. Because the filmmakers don’t treat the story as science fiction—they treat it as family drama. The technology is absurd, but the loneliness is real.
That’s why it lingers. This isn’t a cautionary tale about VR. It’s about what happens when you hit the age where people stop needing you. Felix’s wife still has her career, his daughter is thriving, and he’s… retired. A man without a role. Of course he clings to the fantasy of a woman who makes him feel wanted again.
It’s haunting, at least through the first two acts, because it’s honest. Strip away the holograms, and this is just another story about a middle-aged man chasing the illusion of youth, sabotaging his marriage, and alienating his child. We’ve seen it a hundred times. But rarely with this much empathy for the man unraveling.
Spoiler Alert: But the ending of Auggie lands with all the weight of a wet paper bag. Felix gets caught mid-holographic-romp with his pixelated mistress by his wife who is mortified. She bolts away and Felix spirals into his own flavor of existential shame. Meanwhile, his wife was busy fighting her own temptations — fending off her boss with the kind of iron-will rejection that makes for a moral high ground she later uses to guilt trip Felix. “I choose to be married to you every day,” she tells him. “Some days I don’t want to.” Translation: You’re lucky I haven’t traded you in yet, buddy.
Felix, suitably chastened, promises to “do better.” Then, in a wonderfully on-the-nose twist, he shows up at his daughter’s get-together only to lock eyes with one of her friends named Eve (subtle, huh?), and realizes this is the flesh-and-blood stand-in for his fantasy hologram, Auggie. Cue nervous breakdown. Is he ashamed? Enlightened? Just realizing that Freud would’ve had a field day with him?
Back in his garage, Felix pulls out the Auggie glasses, gives them the look of a man about to put down a beloved but rabid pet, and prepares to smash them to pieces. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a PSA: Middle-aged men, your fantasies are pathetic, your options are illusions, and your best hope is to sit quietly in the corner being tolerated by your spouse.
The film wraps up not with triumph or tragedy, but with resignation. It’s less about desire and more about duty — a sermon to men dressed as science fiction.
