Fifteen Million Merits
Year: 2011
Directed by: Euros Lyn
Starring: Jessica Brown Findlay & Daniel Kaluuya
Runtime: 62 minutes
Published: 09/11/20
Directed by: Euros Lyn
Starring: Jessica Brown Findlay & Daniel Kaluuya
Runtime: 62 minutes
Published: 09/11/20
We live in a world where we always seek to escape the mundanity of day to day life, and often that escape is seen as fame. We all have a favourite actor, singer, writer, pornstar; and we all on some level wish we could have a life like theirs. An escape from the same old routine of day to day life, where we earn very little and spend it on things that ultimately don’t mean much in the long run.
Fifteen Million Merits sees Bing (Daniel Kaluuya) spend his days cycling to generate energy for the complex he lives in. As he cycles, he generates merits, merits can be spent on anything he comes into contact with. Food, soap for washing his hands, toothpaste for brushing his teeth, outfits for his digital avatar, or even just the luxury of being able to skip the never-ending bombardment of adverts he has. He, and everyone else in this complex, is surrounded by screens. You can’t look away from them, and if you close your eyes to avoid watching whatever it’s showing you’re penalised. It’s a never-ending cycle of consumer consumption, because there’s no escape from it.
Bing soon meets Abi (Jessica Brown Findlay). He overhears her singing and uses her talent as an opportunity to talk to her. He tells her that her singing is so good that she should go on Hot Shots, the talent show that airs and is advertised throughout the complex. If you succeed in Hot Shots, then you escape the mundanity of cycling every day for merits. The entry fee is substantial, fifteen million merits to be precise, but Bing has that amount saved up from inheriting his brothers’ merits when he died a year ago. Bing buys Abi entrance to the show, but when things go awry and she doesn’t quite get the fame either of them were expecting, Bing decides to use this opportunity as a way to air his anger to the world by entering himself in Hot Shots.
Fifteen Million Merits sees Bing (Daniel Kaluuya) spend his days cycling to generate energy for the complex he lives in. As he cycles, he generates merits, merits can be spent on anything he comes into contact with. Food, soap for washing his hands, toothpaste for brushing his teeth, outfits for his digital avatar, or even just the luxury of being able to skip the never-ending bombardment of adverts he has. He, and everyone else in this complex, is surrounded by screens. You can’t look away from them, and if you close your eyes to avoid watching whatever it’s showing you’re penalised. It’s a never-ending cycle of consumer consumption, because there’s no escape from it.
Bing soon meets Abi (Jessica Brown Findlay). He overhears her singing and uses her talent as an opportunity to talk to her. He tells her that her singing is so good that she should go on Hot Shots, the talent show that airs and is advertised throughout the complex. If you succeed in Hot Shots, then you escape the mundanity of cycling every day for merits. The entry fee is substantial, fifteen million merits to be precise, but Bing has that amount saved up from inheriting his brothers’ merits when he died a year ago. Bing buys Abi entrance to the show, but when things go awry and she doesn’t quite get the fame either of them were expecting, Bing decides to use this opportunity as a way to air his anger to the world by entering himself in Hot Shots.
First of all, Kaluuya’s performance in this episode is phenomenal. Many years before his breakout success staring in Get Out, he was showing the world exactly what he was capable of. He’s truly fantastic in this episode and most of the reason I stick with it is simply his performance. Not to say that Fifteen Million Merits is bad, but it just has odd pacing and it feels very stop/start in places before long periods of nothing much, and then moments of drama suddenly appear. I suppose that’s just a reflection of life perhaps, drama happens spontaneously and fleetingly in day to day life which itself has many stop/start moments. But in an hour-long story it can make it drag a little and sometimes feels as though its wasting time.
Findlay’s performance as Abi also seems underwhelming. It may just be because Kaluuya is simply so great in this episode that she pales in comparison, but even just the premise of her being an incredible singer falls kind of flat when she regularly has a voice so raspy it just sounds like air coming out.
I do enjoy the conflict and true low point of the episode though, where Bing is forced to watch Abi star in a porn film shortly after she makes it through Hot Shots. Bing was already a man disillusioned by the world he lived in, living frugally because he didn’t see the point in spending his merits on useless tat. But once he is forced to watch what happened to Abi after he convinced her to go on the show and escape the complex they live in; he breaks and what follows is excellent.
The ending is also fittingly bleak for Black Mirror After also winning Hot Shots, Bing is given his own weekly podcast where he rants about how artificial everything is, which ironically is streamed to the cyclists as they collect merits and spend it on Bing themed merchandise for their digital avatars. The true cherry on the cake though is not being completely sure he has actually escaped the complex, that the window he is seen looking out of is potentially just another screen.
Whilst the episode certainly has its merits, there aren’t fifteen million of them (see what I did there?). The episode is a great commentary on our obsession with fame, reality TV, and with pointless consumerism to try and escape the mundanity of day to day life. But it’s weird pacing and my personal dislike of Findlay’s performance, Fifteen Million Merits is an episode I often skip whenever I decide to re-watch Black Mirror.
Findlay’s performance as Abi also seems underwhelming. It may just be because Kaluuya is simply so great in this episode that she pales in comparison, but even just the premise of her being an incredible singer falls kind of flat when she regularly has a voice so raspy it just sounds like air coming out.
I do enjoy the conflict and true low point of the episode though, where Bing is forced to watch Abi star in a porn film shortly after she makes it through Hot Shots. Bing was already a man disillusioned by the world he lived in, living frugally because he didn’t see the point in spending his merits on useless tat. But once he is forced to watch what happened to Abi after he convinced her to go on the show and escape the complex they live in; he breaks and what follows is excellent.
The ending is also fittingly bleak for Black Mirror After also winning Hot Shots, Bing is given his own weekly podcast where he rants about how artificial everything is, which ironically is streamed to the cyclists as they collect merits and spend it on Bing themed merchandise for their digital avatars. The true cherry on the cake though is not being completely sure he has actually escaped the complex, that the window he is seen looking out of is potentially just another screen.
Whilst the episode certainly has its merits, there aren’t fifteen million of them (see what I did there?). The episode is a great commentary on our obsession with fame, reality TV, and with pointless consumerism to try and escape the mundanity of day to day life. But it’s weird pacing and my personal dislike of Findlay’s performance, Fifteen Million Merits is an episode I often skip whenever I decide to re-watch Black Mirror.