Dying Billionaire Transfers His Mind in a Young Healthy Body

Today I will show you an action, mystery, sci-fi film from 2015, titled Self/less. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care. Damian Hale, a successful businessman and billionaire, is looking through large glass windows in his skyscraper apartment in NYC. Behind him, a nurse is getting ready to leave and is picking up her tools. The billionaire has terminal cancer and barely 6 months left to live. Later, during lunch with his best friend Martin, they discuss his illness and how he still hasn’t told his daughter Claire about it. Damian doesn’t have a good relationship with Claire because he was a workaholic while she was growing up and didn’t spend enough time with her.

Martin thinks that if Claire knows about the illness, she will forgive him and they will quickly make amends. Before Damian and Martin ways, the billionaire asks his friend whether he heard of “shedding” and Martin says no. While in his limousine Damian tries to call Claire but she doesn’t answer. Then he pulls a business card of a company named Phoenix Biogenetic and remembers the conversation he had with the company owner – Dr. Albright. The doctor’s primary mission in life is to offer humanity’s greatest minds a way to extend their life and fulfill their full potential. He has created a device that can transport consciousness from one body to another – a process known as shedding.

The company provides new bodies genetically engineered to perfection to everyone willing to pay big money for them. Damian remembers how he asked the doctor why their service was still illegal. Albright said that he asked the wrong questions. The right question would be: “Do you feel immortal?” After going through these memories and wondering whether to take Albright’s offer, Damian goes to see Claire who is running a non-profit organization. Wanting to make things right before dying, he gives his daughter money but doesn't tell her about the illness. She refuses to take the money because she thinks he’s manipulating her, expecting his checkbook to solve every problem. Later Damian is sitting in his office, disappointed with how things turned out with Claire.

Desperate to have another chance at life, he continues to research shedding and Phoenix Biogenic. He discovers that the procedure was invented by Dr. Jensen and watches a video of him explaining the philosophy behind it. Jensen wanted to free the mind from the body and allow people to live even after the body dies. But as Damian is researching shedding, he starts coughing blood and faints. The illness is starting to consume him so when he wakes up with breathing tubes attached to his nose, he decides to call Albright and schedule the procedure. Albright explains how after the switch, he can’t contact anybody and that his old life won’t exist.

He also instructs him to come to New Orleans and publicly fake his death. The next day, Damian’s on a plane and calls Martin, asking if they can have lunch in New Orleans. Before meeting him, he goes to the New Orleans graveyard and buries a mysterious box near one grave. At lunch with Martin, Damian fakes a seizure and falls on the floor. Martin gets scared and calls 911. But instead of going to the hospital, the ambulance vehicle takes the billionaire to Phoenix Biogenic. They quickly start the procedure so they inject Damian with a needle and put him in the machine fully conscious. The strong lights and loud sounds make him even more uncomfortable, but his perception is quickly transferred into the new young body. When Damian turns his head, he sees his old body unconscious and dead. Shocked and disgusted, he throws up. Albright tells him that it will take a few days to adapt while Damian starts hallucinating. Objects start morphing and he sees a picture of a field with horses.

The doctor then sarcastically says that death has side effects. Damian now has to stay in the hospital and go through training and physical therapy to get used to his new body. Since he can’t go back to his new life, Damian also has to learn a fake biography and use a new name – Edward Kidner. After a brief phase of confusion and desperation, he starts liking his new handsome self, but the hallucinations and headaches don’t go away. Albright tells him that his mind still hasn’t got used to the new neural structure so he gives him pills that will help the transition. If Damian doesn’t take them, he might die or have severe migraines and hallucinations. Also, he must stay in New Orleans to meet with Albright regularly and get his weekly pill supply.

After Damian completes the training, he is dropped at a large beautiful house in New Orleans that is now his. Damian a.k.a. Edward, is quickly adapting and sooner than later, starts playing basketball in the neighborhood. There, he meets Anton who lives right next to him and offers to take him out. That same night they go to a club and every woman is staring at Damian who is now a handsome young man.

But he still isn’t used to answering questions about his life, job, and age so people think he’s a little weird. Despite this, Damian gets into a new routine much sooner than expected. He starts hanging out with his friends, playing basketball, sleeping with beautiful women, getting his pills, clubbing, and simply enjoying life. After a while, this new routine doesn’t satisfy him anymore, especially since he can’t see his daughter. Distracted by his sadness, one day he forgets to take his pill and soon after, starts hallucinating. He sees flashbacks of the army along with images of a small town with a pumpkin tower. In his hallucinations, he also sees a mother with her sick little daughter living in the countryside.

Since the hallucination is too vivid and strong, Damian thinks it’s a memory. Later, he describes what he saw to Dr. Albright who insists it’s just a mix of his old memories and his current emotions. As a way to draw his attention to something else, the doctor gives him tickets to Hawaii and doubles his medication. He allso tells him that he saw a sick little girl because he misses Claire and that the Latina woman from his hallucination is probably some one-night stand from his youth.

But, Damian didn’t tell Albright that the woman was Latina so he immediately stars suspecting the doctor. He knows something is wrong so later tries to find the pumpkin tower online. Turns out, there is an exact tower in a small town in St. Louis. Looking for answers, he decides to trick Albright and go to St. Louis instead of Hawaii. Before leaving, he goes to the graveyard and digs up the box he buried. In it, there is money, documents, and credit cards so he takes some and heads toward the airport.

One of Albright’s men follows him but Damian quickly escapes his sight and catches a flight to the small town. A few hours later, he arrives right at the pumpkin tower he saw before. Next to the tower, he notices a house and knocks at the door, but there’s nobody there. Sensing there’s more that meets the eye, Damian decides to enter the property and inside sees medical bills and parts of a respirator machine. Most importantly, he sees a picture of Madeline and Anna, the mother and daughter from his hallucination. He also sees his new self in one of the pictures. Turns out, the body wasn’t genetically engineered but was an actual person with a life. As he’s dealing with the uncomfortable truth, Madeline returns home and points a gun at him from behind.

He tells her to calm down and slowly turns toward her as she falls on the floor, crying in disbelief because she thought her husband was dead. As he tries to explain, Albright’s men come into the house, knock out Madeline and try to kidnap Damian. His friend Anton comes too since he was part of the Phoenix Biogenetics and was spying on him the whole time. Anton explains that Madeline’s husband, Mark, agreed to give his body for money that would cover his daughter’s treatment. Damian is shocked and confronts Anton, explaining why Albright is a murderer.

The spy then gives a coldhearted metaphor, telling him that it’s normal to be upset because he bought a new car and just found out the car had a few miles on it. Also, even though he is angry, there’s no point in coming back to the house since they will assassinate Madeline and burn her property. Luckily, the billionaire has a strong moral compass so decides to trick Albright’s men and save Madeline. He pretends to take his pills so he goes to the bathroom and attacks one of the men there. With the help of Mark’s army instincts, he kills a few of Albright’s men and goes to wake up Madeline but loses his pills during a fight. Anton and the others try to burn the house down but Madeline and Damian go under the platform and start shooting them in the legs. Soon after, Damian kills everyone and runs toward the car with Mark’s wife. Damian lies to her and pretends to be her husband, saying he agreed to do some dirty work to pay for Anna’s medicine.

Both of them head off to save Anna who is at school. Anna also thinks Damian is her dad so she runs toward him and hugs him, yelling that she knew he wasn’t dead. Later, the three of them book a stay at a motel where Damian uses a computer to find more about Phoenix Biogenic. He discovers that Albright was a student of Jensen and also finds the address of Phyllis, Dr. Jensen’s wife. Because he doesn’t have any pills, he gets a migraine and starts hallucinating again. Madeline gets worried but Damian knows what to do.

He decides to visit Phyllis and learn more about the company. The next morning, they take the car and go to the nursery home where Jensen’s wife is staying. He poses as a student that’s doing research about Jensen’s work and asks Phyllis to give him the doctor’s old papers and documents. The old woman has Alzheimer so she believes Damian and starts telling him all sorts of information. He finds out that Albright visits her every week so he quickly figures out that Jensen is using Albright’s body. He asks Phyllis to call Albright and invite him to come. When the doctor arrives, Damian points a gun at him, demanding more pills. But Albright tells him a bitter truth.

The more pills he takes, the more Mark disappears along with his fighting skills and army training. Without the pills, Damian’s mind will fall into oblivion and Mark will take over the body. Damian then kidnaps Albright and demands he takes him to the lab. But as they start walking through the hallway, Albright’s men attack and disarm him. As they are taking Damian to a dark vehicle, Madeline arrives and hits one of Albright’s men. Turns out it was Anton in a new body. It’s not his first shedding and that’s why he can quickly adapt to new vessels.

Damian fights off the other guard but before the young couple runs away, Anton warns Madeline that Damian is hiding something and tells her to ask him about their daughter's birthday. When Damian and Madeline get into their car, the concerned mother insists they pull over as soon as the coast is clear. She wants to get something straight, especially after the interaction with Anton. She asks Damian about Anna’s birthday and other details about their life together. When he can’t give any answers, he starts explaining the situation while Anna observes their fight from the car wondering whether everything is okay. Madeline gets very agitated and angry because Damian manipulated her and because she has to disappoint her daughter.

She doesn’t want to explain to Anna how the man who looks exactly like her father is in fact a stranger. But Albright’s men want to kill her too so even though she doesn’t like or trust Damian, she has to work with him to survive. The billionaire then thinks of plan – to ask help from Martin and place Anna and Madeline in a safe location. When they arrive at his friend’s mansion, Damian convinces Martin of the truth by describing details only the two of them know.

Martin then agrees to help and organizes their escape. Later, Damian tries to figure out how to explain to little Anna that she’s never going to see her father again. But he starts bonding with her, building new beautiful father-daughter memories. He teaches her how to swim and they have a great time together while Madeline observes them from the window, happy. Since he is in her husband’s body, she feels attracted to Damian so she asks to listen to his heart and kisses him. Damian feels uncomfortable and so he starts telling her about his previous life in order to shift her attention from Mark. He opens up about his relationship with Claire and they have an honest heart-to-heart conversation. But suddenly, Damian notices that all the mirrors in the house are covered. He knows that Martin’s son died two years ago and quickly starts suspecting that something is wrong.

He runs and tries to find Anna who’s in a large kid’s room playing with a little boy. Damian immediately figures out that Martin brought his child to Phoenix Biogenetic as well, and gave him a new body. Turns out, Martin ratted them out to Albright and that the killers are waiting outside to kill them. But Damian confronts his friend and tells him that the little kid’s body is not created in a lab. It was a real person and someone else’s child. Martin is shocked and disgusted so he decides to help them, this time for real. He takes Madeline and Anna to a safe location on foot through a forest while Damian drives off in a car as bait. Soon after, he gets into a car chase with Albright’s men who are trying to capture and kill him. After shooting and crashing their cars into each other, all of them get into a massive car accident. Damian gets out of the car and makes sure everybody is dead before going to the diner where he’s supposed to meet Madeline and Martin. However, Martin’s the only one who arrives.

He explains to Damian how Madeline and Anna got ahead of him in the forest. They asked for help from a mysterious car on the road. Little did they know, it was Albright’s men so they got kidnapped and Martin couldn’t do anything because they were far away. Damian also learns Martin planted the business card from Phoenix Biogenetic as a way to help him. Most importantly, he discovers that Martin cracked the formula for Albright’s pills and that he can engineer them from scratch. But Damian starts wondering whether he should continue to take pills, especially since that way, he’s killing Mark. He puts off that decision until later since now he’s priority is to save Madeline and Anna.

The plan is to say off the pill for 12 hours, hoping to use Mark’s memories to find more information about the lab’s location. During his withdrawal, he sees a Mardi Gras floats storage near Albright’s lab so he heads to New Orleans to find the storage. The next day, he goes to New Orleans and finds the lab exactly next to a Mardi Gras storage. He breaks in and attacks a few guards without anybody noticing. But in the room where the machine transfers consciousness, he sees two new bodies. Suddenly, Albright appears behind a glass wall. He sarcastically tells Damian that Madeline was the perfect body match for a new client and that Anna’s organs won’t be wasted. Damian gets angry and shoots at the glass that separates them when suddenly, two of Albright’s men appear and disarm him.

His body will now be used as a new vessel for Anton’s consciousness. Before stepping into the machine, Damian finds a bullet and swallows it without anybody noticing. Next thing we know, Anton wakes up in Mark’s body. Albright starts asking questions to determine whether it’s really Anton. After he’s convinced, he sends him on a mission to assassinate Madeline and Anna. But when Anton enters the room they are staying at, he kills the guards instead and saves the mother and child. Turns out, it was Damian in Mark’s body all along. The three of them start running away and fight off Albright’s men. Soon, they end up in a room which separates them from Albright with a glass wall. Damian tells the doctor that he carefully listened to instructions before the first procedure.

He remembered that the transformation won’t work if there is metal on the bodies. By swallowing a bullet, he managed to remain in Mark’s body. Albright doesn’t think that Damian will kill him because he’s the only one who has the pill formula. But he doesn’t know that Martin cracked the code, so Damian burns the doctor with a torch. After they escape the lab, Anna and Madeline go to a safe destination Martin found for them. But Damian doesn't come along. Instead, he goes to see Claire. He poses as her father’s friend and starts opening up.

He tells Claire that Damian regretted not spending time with her as a child and that he was proud of her. Then, he gives her a letter and leaves but not without glancing at her one more time from outside the window. The next thing we see is Damian waking up in a hotel room. He is confused and finds a video of himself on a computer. Turns out, Damian isn’t in Mark’s body anymore. The billionaire decided to get off the pill and allow Mark to take over, giving him back the life that was taken from him. Mark is in shock but he feels extremely grateful. He then goes to join Madeline and Anna who are now living on a beautiful tropical island.