In one of those quirks of timing that has given us double asteroid disaster movies and two Truman Capote biopics in the same year, there's a pair of new sci-fi films that both happen to be about people who swap their old bodies for younger, more attractive ones. It's the kind of futuristic upgrade that, of course, ultimately comes at a terrible price. One of these films, Self/less, stars Ryan Reynolds and Matthew Goode, is directed by Tarsem Singh (whose Mirror Mirror was another twin film), and is opening in wide release this weekend. The other has already dipped in and out of theaters and found its way onto Netflix. But it's the latter, a smaller, more jagged work, that has the better ideas. Its main character is relatively small-time herself, someone who gets pushed into her fate rather than choosing it, someone who's grappling with a lot more than just the ethics of trading in your body for a newer model.

That indie is Advantageous, from director Jennifer Phang, who wrote the film with lead actor Jacqueline Kim (the cast also includes Ken Jeong, Jennifer Ehle, and James Urbaniak). While Self/less, which is scripted by brothers David and Àlex Pastor (Carriers), takes place in what seems to be a slightly tweaked present day, Advantageous is set in a near future in which the skyline is sleeker and the population more stressed by growing unemployment, worsening inequality, and terrorist attacks. Single mother Gwen Koh is maintaining a precarious grasp on the sunny professional life she's been living with her daughter Jules (Samantha Kim). When Gwen loses her job as the face of the Center for Advanced Health and Living, on whose behalf she delivers soothing messages about "alternatives to invasive cosmetic surgery" that are in reality far more extreme, Jules' future is put in jeopardy.

The fact that Advantageous is about an East Asian woman is more than just a welcome instance of diverse casting. The marginalization she's experienced reveals itself to be a thematic benefit of seismic proportions, especially when looked at in contrast with Self/less's Damian (played at first by Ben Kingsley, laboring with an Al Pacino–style New York accent). Damian is a real estate mogul with terminal cancer who lives in a gold-toned apartment high above Central Park. He's poised to leave behind a bunch of skyscrapers and an activist daughter (Michelle Dockery) from whom he's totally estranged, but when an enigmatic scientist named Albright (Matthew Goode) from a company called Phoenix Biogenic comes calling with an expensive, too-good-to-be-true treatment, Damian signs up because he's not ready to die yet. Soon, he finds himself starting over in New Orleans in a new body (Ryan Reynolds, who mysteriously but thankfully doesn't try to replicate Kingsley's accent).