Director Kate Dolan on Building Soulm8te's Human Side

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Artificial intelligence may be at the center of Soulm8te, but for writer-director Kate Dolan, the film always began with something much more human.

More than another story about technology gone wrong, Dolan was interested in the people who create that technology and the biases, expectations, and contradictions that inevitably become part of it.

This idea took shape through Sarah, the film's AI companion.

Inspired by the erotic thrillers of the '80s and '90s, Dolan revisited the familiar "dangerous woman" archetype and chose to turn it on its head. Sarah is not a traditional femme fatale, but a blank slate that learns how to behave from the people and media around her.

"Her bad behavior can only be blamed on what she experiences."

While researching the script, Dolan immersed herself in everything from the prevalence of female AI voices to the expectations society places on women. Rather than making those observations the film's central message, she wove them into Sarah's development and allowed the character to absorb the world exactly as it presents itself.

One idea in particular stayed with her: the impossible standard of being the "perfect woman."

"There is no way to be a perfect woman because there's constant contradictions."

This contradiction becomes one of the guiding principles behind Sarah's character. She's programmed to become the perfect partner, but every message she receives pushes her in a different direction, creating a goal that's impossible to satisfy.

The same attention to detail shaped Sarah's performance. Working closely with Lily Sullivan, Dolan developed a three-phase roadmap that tracked the character's evolution, giving Sullivan a clear foundation for every stage of the role. Even the smallest of details shifted as the character changed, from the way she moved through a room to the weight of her footsteps.

"It was layers and layers of different sounds that we had for her."

The visual language evolved alongside the characters. Lighting, color, and production design were all designed to reflect each character's emotional perspective and allow the look of the film to evolve alongside them.

For all of Soulm8te's conversations about artificial intelligence, Dolan ultimately sees the film as a reflection of human behavior. Sarah isn't inventing her own morality, but learning from ours.

"We can't really blame her for how she behaves," Dolan says. "She's just mirroring us and what we've kind of taught her to do."

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