Frank (Frank Langella) lives alone but his children, especially his son Hunter (James Marsden), feel that his growing forgetfulness needs to be monitored full time. Despite Frank's stubbornness, Hunter insists on providing a helper robot to live with Frank, to perform housework and monitor his health signs, and thus hopefully giving them (Frank and son) some independence from each other. Frank will get less nagging from his kids to live healthier, and Hunter will be able to devote more time to his own family rather than his father, who lives far from him.
As expected Frank initially does not take kindly to the robot. Frank longs to stay in the past, which is shown in the sorts of forgetful memories he has--a favorite restaurant has closed down years ago, and son Hunter is no longer a student at Princeton. Frank also has a sparkly eye on the local librarian (Susan Sarandon), but the library too is being infiltrated by machines, so much so that the library is being digitized and old books are being gotten rid of.
Frank discovers the robot (voice by Peter Sarsgard) does not have any moral limitations, so he teaches it how to pick locks and rob things, a quasi secret from Frank's past. This leads to suspicion of Frank when jewels go missing, and he begins to see how he and the robot have a lot in common--essentially, the risk of wiping the robot's memory since it has recorded all of Frank's movements--Frank equates this to his own increasing memory loss.
This film was not as deep or funny as I
had hoped. There are four major flaws which made it lacking in execution of the
story for me.
1. The robot is obviously a person in a suit. Although it looks like the "Asimo" robot, the movement limitations of the suit and the inability of the physical performer to keep absolutely still is apparent, and detracts from suspending our disbelief that this is a robot and not a person. There doesn't seem to be much high tech shown either--it does housework and can make a cellphone call without Frank's knowledge and can monitor his health habits, and Frank teaches it how to pick a lock but that is about it. The film cheats by cutting away often when the robot is supposed to do simple human things, like get in a car, or things involving true manual dexterity; that seems to be apparently too difficult for a person in a suit to show believably so the film chose just not to show it.
2. Supporting characters are pretty self-centered and boorish. This includes Frank's theft victims, a condescending library technician who is upgrading the library and a shopowner who accuses Frank of shoplifting. Even if they are mean characters meant to appear to the audience as people anti-Frank, they are essentially in the right to suspect and accuse him of criminal behavior, because he in fact does steal from them; it seems he dislikes them for their personalities and chooses them as theft victims for this reason. Even Frank's daughter (Liv Tyler) comes off as self centered--she's supposed to appear as a giving person since she works in third world countries, but it seems to be her brother (and James Marsden has the better character role) who has the heavy lifting of seeing to their father's health needs--providing the robot, potential move to senior home, brain tests for his Alzheimer's. When she does return home to stay with Frank, it is more to prove to her brother she is not shirking her duty, rather than truly caring for her father's emotional or health needs. Yet she spends an hour making a lame bowl of spaghetti and can't clean up when Frank (deliberately) trashes the house to get her to leave after he sees how disruptive she is to his routine and theft plans with with the robot. Does she think caring for an aged parent would be easy? What is the point of having this daughter character--to show that there is no one Frank's side of course, except the robot who is non-judgmental.
Later when Frank is in more of a mental decline the film shows the whole family spending time together, as if this has bonded them, but unfortunately by this time Frank's memory is gone. This was an ironic moment to me.
1. The robot is obviously a person in a suit. Although it looks like the "Asimo" robot, the movement limitations of the suit and the inability of the physical performer to keep absolutely still is apparent, and detracts from suspending our disbelief that this is a robot and not a person. There doesn't seem to be much high tech shown either--it does housework and can make a cellphone call without Frank's knowledge and can monitor his health habits, and Frank teaches it how to pick a lock but that is about it. The film cheats by cutting away often when the robot is supposed to do simple human things, like get in a car, or things involving true manual dexterity; that seems to be apparently too difficult for a person in a suit to show believably so the film chose just not to show it.
2. Supporting characters are pretty self-centered and boorish. This includes Frank's theft victims, a condescending library technician who is upgrading the library and a shopowner who accuses Frank of shoplifting. Even if they are mean characters meant to appear to the audience as people anti-Frank, they are essentially in the right to suspect and accuse him of criminal behavior, because he in fact does steal from them; it seems he dislikes them for their personalities and chooses them as theft victims for this reason. Even Frank's daughter (Liv Tyler) comes off as self centered--she's supposed to appear as a giving person since she works in third world countries, but it seems to be her brother (and James Marsden has the better character role) who has the heavy lifting of seeing to their father's health needs--providing the robot, potential move to senior home, brain tests for his Alzheimer's. When she does return home to stay with Frank, it is more to prove to her brother she is not shirking her duty, rather than truly caring for her father's emotional or health needs. Yet she spends an hour making a lame bowl of spaghetti and can't clean up when Frank (deliberately) trashes the house to get her to leave after he sees how disruptive she is to his routine and theft plans with with the robot. Does she think caring for an aged parent would be easy? What is the point of having this daughter character--to show that there is no one Frank's side of course, except the robot who is non-judgmental.
Later when Frank is in more of a mental decline the film shows the whole family spending time together, as if this has bonded them, but unfortunately by this time Frank's memory is gone. This was an ironic moment to me.
If the story had made more of the supporting characters more complex and
less comedic or cartoonish, it would make Frank's struggle deeper and more
poignant. As such, at times he comes off as petty and despite revealment of an
additional emotional moment near the end of the film, involving Susan Sarandon's
character, this late scene felt manipulative.
3. Although meant to be subtle, the theme of memory loss is a little too
obvious and yet not fully explored. We see Frank has bouts of memory loss, even in stressful moments (I don't know
if this is true of Alzheimer's). This I don't really quibble with because it is
part of Frank's character and physiology and part of the reason his Hunter thinks he needs the
robot, and a catalyst for the plot. The less subtle things were the usage of Don Quixote, which is thrown in there but not expanded on, and the robot's caution
that his memory will be wiped if Frank doesn't keep him, and then later Frank
refuses to wipe his memory once he's bonded with it. What does that mean for the character of Frank? I get that Frank and the robot are
supposed to be mirrors of each other in terms of the concept of memory, but felt the story should have explored more about this facet of the relationship.
4. The heist part of the story is for the most part stuck in there as a
plot device. Frank only robs two things and there is no real buildup showing
meaningful bonding with the robot. I mean, Frank shows the robot the mechanics
of picking a lock (and all the robot really does is jiggle the pick and voila, the lock is opened) or showing him how to avoid the security camera but the Frank
character doesn't ruminate enough on his health and life situation.
In essence, this wants to be an independent film but is mostly a mainstream movie that I don't think adequately explores Frank's further distancing from his family.
In essence, this wants to be an independent film but is mostly a mainstream movie that I don't think adequately explores Frank's further distancing from his family.
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