Scott Cohen is a high-powered music executive with an interest in future technology. He is a proponent of "The Singularity," the theory that the rate of technological change will become so rapid that man will meld with machines. About six years ago he took his first steps to become a cyborg. He had a titanium station surgically implanted into his chest which makes him sensitive to the poles, turning him into a human compass.
His wife Susanna Cappellaro began documenting Scott's quest right away, primarily on her smartphone, and her film My Husband the Cyborg is the result. The title might suggest a sci-fi opus, but it’s an intimate and poignant look at love, devotion, and what makes us human. Scott and Susanna see the world differently. As one friend tells her, "Scott is made up almost entirely of straight lines, and you’re made up of messed up lines." Scott calculates, Susanna feels. And what starts out as a bizarre challenge turns into a probing examination of their marriage.
Ms. Cappellaro shot footage over three years, charting Scott's changes, listening as he explained how differently he saw the world. They argue—he can't understand why she can't see his acts as normal—, come together, and take on mutual risk. Scott is imposing, shorn and shaved bald, a cross between Buddha and, say, the Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan. Susanna is French, pretty, and winsome. She's afraid of what they lose in contact, the device blocking the path of a simple embrace. Her husband assures her that eventually "we can recreate physical touch." Susanna goes along because Scott is used to getting what he wants (the most intriguing conflict comes with his dread over telling his parents).
Scott is not alone. There are others. Susanna attends a convention of body-modifiers, like-minded to Scott, to show solidarity. Their course grows out of the piercing/tattoo paradigm, contrary to conventional health care. For Susanna and Scott, love talk becomes ultimatums, even as she herself submits to procedures in order to keep them together.
Ms. Cappellaro shot a wealth of footage over three years, verité style, from the hip. This is her first film, and her storytelling is kept simple. She and Maya Maffioli, her editor, trim scenes crisply and even with humor: Scott's elaborate explanation of joining his metabolism to the world around him cuts abruptly to a shot of a salad spinner. The film's sections are punctuated by kaleidoscopic AI-generated markers. One brief shot of Scott on a terrace, observing an oncoming electric storm, visually sums him up, symbolic of man's role in nature.
My Husband the Cyborg is appropriately being released on Valentine's Day. Ms. Cappellaro's documentary is a bright surprise, not a harbinger of oncoming doom. We root for her and for them. At one point, she insists to a frustrated Scott that her documentary about him is proof of love. He replies, "You're making a film about you." And he's half right.
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My Husband the Cyborg. Directed by Susanna Cappellaro. 2025. On digital platforms. 93 minutes.