Morin (2023)

Germany, 2037: Eleven-year-old Morin Held passes the entrance exam for the prestigious “Junior Academy,” an elite school specializing in space research and spaceflight. An enthusiastic researcher, he is already conducting private experiments with his friend Charlie on how plants grow under different conditions. His greatest wish is to travel to Mars, where humanity’s upper classes are building new habitats. The fact that Charlie failed the Academy’s entrance exam and has to attend one of the inferior state schools drives the first wedge between them. At the highly technologically advanced Academy, the children study in small, subject-focused groups and are assigned personal coaches in the form of holographic AI characters, whom they can summon at any time using a data wristband. But it soon becomes clear that the school is not just about working together—it is also about competing against one another. Academic success is measured in points called “Takens.” The children are graded not only on schoolwork; their wristbands and a network of video cameras also monitor them at every turn, while a central AI records and evaluates every social interaction. Practices considered cheating elsewhere are given positive marks, since taking advantage of other people is regarded as an efficient use of resources. Morin throws himself into his schoolwork with great enthusiasm, and with the help of his coach, Leona, he also “declutters” his life. This costs him not only his friendship with Charlie; he also grows increasingly distant from his parents, treating them arrogantly and becoming unbearable without realizing it. The Academy conducts regular progress reviews and dismisses its weakest students, shrinking Morin’s year group from twelve children to eight. It becomes clear that the Academy is run by wealthy spaceflight companies as a training ground for human resources, relentlessly shaping the children to be efficient and high-performing. After being expelled, a highly gifted but overly introverted student from Morin’s group is devastated and attempts suicide, an incident the school keeps quiet. An older student collapses from exhaustion at the Academy right in front of Morin. The powerful company has already identified Morin as a future high-potential candidate based on his interim results and pressures the Academy’s director to manipulate the assessments so that Morin comes out on top. This is unmistakable in a final exam where the students answer questions in the format of a TV quiz show. The student who loses to Morin leaves the Academy in anger. Morin thinks things through carefully and decides to change his priorities. He continues to do well at the Academy, but also renews his broken-off contact with Charlie and holds on to some of his childhood. In subplots, the professional situations of Morin’s parents are portrayed. His father is a disillusioned, unemployed insurance agent, while his mother works in medical research and has to watch helplessly as an ambitious younger colleague uses her findings to her own advantage. Morin’s most important person besides his parents is his grandmother Ida, an artist who teaches him that not all values can be measured in financial terms.