The Congress then flashes forward twenty years later to her travels in the studio's animated utopia world, where anyone can become an avatar of themselves, but are required to use hallucinogenic drugs to enter a mutable illusory state.

[9] Robin Wright is an aging actress whose career suffered because of her erratic behavior and reputation for being fickle and unreliable.

Aided by Dr. Barker, Robin barely manages to stave off the worst effects of Aaron's decline, although his condition is sliding into its terminal stage.

Realizing that she may be unable to find future work with the emergence of this new technology, Robin agrees to do it for a hefty sum of money.

Twenty years later, Robin travels to Abrahama City, where she will speak at the "Futurological Congress", Miramount's entertainment conference.

While discussing her new contract with Jeff, Robin learns that Miramount developed a new technology that will allow anyone to devour her or possibly transform themselves into her with the hallucinogen.

Aaron did it only six months earlier when his condition left him virtually blind and deaf and he had given up hope of Robin's return.

While some elements of the film were added by Ari Folman, others were based on the science-fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem.

[12] The animation was created by Bridgit Folman Films Gang, based in Israel, who worked on the script for 19 years.

[8] Max Richter, who had previously worked with Folman in Waltz with Bashir, created the soundtrack of The Congress.

[17] Many of the songs are composed by Richter himself, but the soundtrack also includes the Andante movement from Franz Schubert's Piano Trio No.

2, Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne Op.27-1 in C# minor, "Forever Young" from Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen's "If It Be Your Will".

The website's critical consensus states: "The Congress rises on the strength of Robin Wright's powerful performance, with enough ambitious storytelling and technical thrills to overcome its somewhat messy structure.

[23] Scout Tafoya gave the movie 31⁄2 stars in a 2014 review at RogerEbert.com, saying: "'The Congress' is a roll call of the orgiastic pleasures and bountiful comforts that art provides, and, a reminder of what waits for us when we leave the theater.

Several writers noted similarities between the movie and real life events, where SAG-AFTRA organizers claimed that the film studios had put forward an artificial intelligence proposal that would permit them to scan actors' bodies in exchange for a day's compensation and retain the rights to their image in perpetuity.