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August 15, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com
FILM
I Love You, Bot Jake Schreier offers up endearing sci-fi buddy comedy BY STEVE ERICKSON f the predictions made about our future in “Robot & Frank” are accurate, relationships between parents and children will deteriorate, but we can look forward to a new world of human/ robot bonding. The closing credit sequence of “Robot & Frank” consists of footage of real-life robots, suggesting their future is just around the corner. Jake Schreier’s feature is the kind of relatively low-budget, unpretentious sci-fi film Hollywood no longer knows how to make. I won’t make any great claims for it, but “Robot & Frank” is a Frank Langella and his co-star in Jake Schreier’s “Robot & Frank.” lot more enjoyable than Ridley Scott’s bloated “Prometheus,” which found librarian Jennifer (Susan Sarandon). room for dense theological subtext but But he keeps talking about going to a couldn’t tell a coherent surface narra- restaurant that’s long since gone out of business. His son Hunter (James tive. Christopher Ford’s script is rela- Marsden) buys him a robot butler tively light on the specifics of our (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard), who is robot future. Skype has completely referred to simply as Robot. However, superseded ordinary phone calls. his daughter Madison (Liv Tyler), who’s Books are in danger of being replaced traveling in Turkmenistan, is opposed by “augmented reality.” Most impor- to the use of machine labor. At first, Robot and Frank don’t get tantly, robot servants have become ubiquitous. Yet there are some large along, though in time Robot adjusts holes in the film’s vision of the future to Frank’s routine –– which includes –– it doesn’t really imagine how tele- regular trips to a library being modernized by Jake (Jeremy vision and the Internet ROBOT & FRANK Strong), an obnoxious might evolve, for example. yuppie, as well as lux“Robot & Frank” is conDirected by Jake Schreier ury soap shoplifting tent to let the spectator fill Samuel Goldwyn Films sprees. As he grows in those gaps. Opens Aug. 17 to like Robot, Frank At the beginning of The Angelika 18 W. Houston St. at Mercer St. trains him to pick “Robot & Frank,” 70-yearangelikafilmcenter.com locks, preparing to burold Frank (Frank Langlarize Jake’s house. gella) is suffering from Beneath the sci-fi trappings, “Robot dementia. He lives in a suburban New York community, where he enjoys & Frank” is a buddy comedy. Like walking to the library and flirting with many of them, it brings together two
men –– Robot is technically genderless, but is voiced by a male actor –– from disparate backgrounds. Buddy films often pair white and African-American men; in this case, Robot adds the element of Otherness. Like many buddies, they spar at first. Frank feels patronized by Robot’s concern for his health and zeal to organize his life. Only with time does he come to respect Robot’s intelligence and ability to think on its feet. For its part, Robot begins to treat Frank as someone more than a man built on self-destruction. Through Schreier’s eyes, the future does not look bright. The cinematography of “Robot & Frank” is bleachedout –– the colors are muted, with dark blues dominating, and the lighting is dim. Perhaps Frank feels more comfortable without the lights on. As far as I can tell, the film wasn’t shot on video, but it looks like HD. Langella avoids playing his char acter’s dementia as a cute quirk. His relationship with Hunter and Madi-
son is understandably distant, given that he was in prison for much of their childhood. It’s easy to appreciate how Hunter would grow sick of a ten-hour round-trip drive to visit a man who can’t remember that he graduated from college 15 years ago. The film’s edge comes from the notion of burglary as therapeutic. It’s obviously the only thing Frank ever felt passionate about. Robot initially refers to picking locks as a hobby, and for Frank, it really is one. Monetary gain, at least at this point in his life, is secondary to the thrill of the burglary itself. “Robot & Frank” treats technology as a fact of life, with a potential to be used for positive or negative purposes. Schreier and Ford obviously love libraries, and anyone who finds the prospect of the Kindle replacing paper books horrifying will find kindred spirits behind the story. Jake is presented as a figure to make fun of, and Madison doesn’t come off much better. She’s oblivious to the fact that she’s exploiting the people in Turkmenistan whose photogenic poverty she shows off. Her brand of NGO-driven humanism is, in important respects, the flipside of Jake’s drive to destroy the library. By training Robot to suit his needs, Frank seems to find a workable middle ground between the two. If it weren’t science fiction, “Robot & Frank” might seem awfully familiar –– a tale about an aging crook out to do one last big job. Dozens of films have been made around the world with the same premise. Here, Ford manages to put some inventive twists on his narrative, and the cast members –– not least of them Sarsgaard, whose voice is convincingly mechanical –– give it their all. “Robot & Frank” is a real charmer.
the vacation. Max barks at everyone, flaunts his wealth, and is just plain mad at the world, so why Vincent moons lovingly over this jerk — staring longingly at him in one prolonged scene — is a mystery. When Max brings the tensions between them out into the open –– insisting that a child ask Vincent what a faggot is –– it offers promise that the gay character might claim the respect he deserves. The opportunity, however, proves fleeting. The other storylines fail to catch fire. Eric (Gilles Lellouche) and Antoine (Laurent Lafitte) both have girlfriend troubles and mope about their absent women. Marie (Marion Cotillard) also struggles with relationship issues, but a brief scene of her reuniting with a lesbian lover goes nowhere.
The film addresses how people cope with insecurities and fears by lying to themselves and others but never answers the question of why these characters are friends. It comes as a relief when a truth-telling character chastises them for being selfish and rather unpleasant people, but audiences will grow impatient waiting for them to hook up, make up, or pass out. Cotillard as Marie does her best in an underwritten role, but the usually dependable Cluzet overplays his part as Max, mugging shamelessly. In support, Dujardin is off screen for far too long. A flashback features him performing in drag, one of the film’s more amusing and spirited sequences. But much of “Little White Lies” is just a drag. At least here, though, the music is good.
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None of Honoré’s characters is able to love the one they are with, nor can any live without the ones they love. This theme is echoed in a parallel –– though largely pointless –– storyline of an older Madeleine (Catherine Deneuve, Mastroianni’s real-life mother) having an affair with Jaromil (filmmaker Milos Forman) decades after their initial involvement. Honoré’s touch in “Beloved” is heavyhanded. He crams sudden death, AIDS, the 9/11 tragedy, and suicide into this strange melodramatic musical. And it just doesn’t sing.
The other new French film, “Little White Lies,” also features plenty of music, here in the form
of upbeat American pop songs. These tunes are used to manipulate the audience into feeling good about the characters, all of whom behave badly. Ludo (Jean Dujardin) is hospitalized in the intensive care unit after a bad motorcycle accident. His best friends, however, still take their annual vacation and grapple with their problems. The wealthy Max (François Cluzet) is particularly unnerved — not because of Ludo’s critical condition — but because his best friend Vincent (Benoit Magimel) has just confessed his love for him. Max’s negative response to this admission prompts Victor to keep his secret from both of their wives and their mutual friends. Of course, it creates friction, especially when Vincent and Max are forced to be alone together throughout
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