D.A.R.Y.L.

Watch D.A.R.Y.L. (1985) online — a British-American sci-fi family film directed by Simon Wincer, starring Barret Oliver, Mary Beth Hurt, and Michael McKean. A boy with amnesia is placed with a foster family and turns out to be an astonishing child: he masters piano in an evening, demolishes every athletic record at school, and handles a military jet as if he was born in the cockpit.

That last detail is what tips off the government. D.A.R.Y.L. stands for Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform — a Pentagon experiment, not a missing child. When the project is declared a failure and shutdown orders come through, the scientists who built him and the family who raised him have to decide what exactly they owe a being that can feel lonely, even if nobody designed him to. For a mid-80s studio picture, it pushes the question further than expected. Stream D.A.R.Y.L. online on iFILM.