Brave New World

New London has made happiness a social obligation. In Brave New World, comfort, conditioning and carefully arranged relationships leave little room for the inconvenience of individual choice. The arrival of an outsider exposes questions the society has trained itself not to ask.

This adaptation of Aldous Huxley's novel is a glossy science-fiction drama rather than a close substitute for reading the book. Its clean surfaces and apparently effortless pleasures help explain why somebody might accept the arrangement before its restrictions become clear.

The ideas are more consistently interesting than the plotting. Characters have to carry an argument about freedom as well as a personal story, and the balance does not always work. Still, a world that can manage discontent without looking obviously miserable is a more unsettling premise than another ruined city.

Consider it if you enjoy speculative societies and do not require a faithful literary adaptation. Severance offers a more sharply controlled investigation of managed identity; this version spreads its questions across an entire social order.