YMMV / Self/Less

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Damian. Is it all Damian using Mark's instincts or is Mark helping and influencing him on some level? We don't see Damian become an Instant Expert at hand-to-hand combat and guns until Mark's family was threatened. Both men's goals (both are fathers and both are protecting Mark's wife and daughter) are very much in line with each other so there would be no conflict between them. If so, then it would suggest that Shedding isn't as perfected as Albright would like to believe.
  • Albright Is he a Well-Intentioned Extremist or someone who takes advantage of desperate people to supply him with funding and subjects for his work?
• Harsher in Hindsight: Michelle Dockery plays a girl whose father is dying of a terminal illness. At the end of 2015, her fiancée passed away after a battle with cancer.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Anna seeing and hugging Damian (in her father's body), saying that she knew he would come back.
  • Damian teaching Anna how to swim and being a father to her. Even if it's for just a short time.
  • Madeline getting to know Damian as a person during their time together. She even greets him warmly at the end; before realizing that it's actually Mark.
  • Damian's message to Mark, thanking him for the months he had given him and welcoming him back. Mark is appropriately awed and in tears. Doubles as a Tearjerker. From the expression on Mark's face, he probably felt as if he had just lost a loved one.
  • Martin staying by Damian's side when he stops taking the pills so he can find out where Albright is and later helping Mark's family get to safety.
  • Damian's final meeting with his daughter and giving her a letter to give her closure.
  • Mark finally reuniting with his family.
• Moe: Anna is just impossibly cute.
• Moral Event Horizon: If Albright hadn't already crossed it by shedding Martin son's mind into a young boy, he certainly had crossed it by going after Mark Bitwell's family.
• Nightmare Fuel: Albright was planning to have a client shedded into Madeline's body and Anna's organs harvested.
• Rooting for the Empire: Albright is such a charming mastermind that a few wanted him to succeed. There's also the fact that he says the only reason he uses real people is because he can't actually grow the bodies, and would switch to that immediately if it were an option.
• So Okay, It's Average: It has some good points and an interesting idea, yet fails to be anything other than average in the minds of a lot of viewers.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Critics noted that the film had interesting ideas - such as the ethics about life swapping - but was hurt by the overemphasis on action.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously:
  • In spite of the film being not that well received, Matthew Goode's performance as Albright got some praise.
  • Likewise Natalie Martinez comes close to salvaging the film in parts with her performance as Maddie.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Damian is a Jerkass who spends most of the film lying to Maddie and Anna, and is trying to extend his own life at the expense of someone else's. Granted he didn't know that at first but his plan also involves letting his daughter and the rest of his family and friends believe he's dead. When Madeline finally confronts him, he does tell her the truth and becomes The Atoner.
• The Un-Twist: The Reveal that the body Damian is using being a real person was guessed by most viewers instantly.

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