Robot & Frank (2012)

Directed by: Jake Schreier | 89 minutes | drama, comedy, science fiction | Actors: Frank Langella, James Marsden, Liv Tyler, Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jeremy Strong, Dario Barosso, Bonnie Bentley, Ana Gasteyer, Rachael Ma, Dana Morgan, Joshua Ormond, Jeremy Sisto, Katherine Waterston, Jesse Newman

It is not a pleasant prospect as people get older. First comes the retirement, then often loneliness and boredom and if you are a little unlucky, at a certain point old age starts to express itself in a certain way. The same goes for Frank (Frank Langella). He has passed the stage of retirement (he was a diamond thief by ‘profession’) and loneliness for a while, but unfortunately his memory is failing him more and more now. This worries his son Hunter (James Marsden) and daughter Madison (Liv Tyler), especially since they don’t have the time to take care of their old father themselves. At his wits’ end, Hunter comes up with the idea of ​​giving Frank a robot. A robot that can actually do everything that a person can: talk, walk, clean and do groceries, to name just a few examples.

And so a strange friendship was born. Because although Frank initially doesn’t like his ‘helper’ and shows his annoyance while grumbling, this changes when he finds out that the robot (voice of Peter Sarsgaard) can do much more than slavishly follow his orders. When it turns out that this robot doesn’t think too much about whether something is right or wrong, Frank sees his chance to breathe new life into his old career as a burglar with his new friend. After a few rehearsals, it’s soon time for the big job: robbing the safe of Jake (Jeremy Strong), the new and rather arrogant owner of the local library that Frank used to like.

It’s a strange principle, of course, an old man trying to pull off one robbery after another with his robot. Still, ‘Robot & Frank’ manages to portray this bizarre premise in a reasonably credible way. The reason that the makers succeed in this is that the focus is for the most part on Frank’s character and the bond that develops between him and the robot (whose voice comes across surprisingly well and does not disturb anywhere). Because where the burglary scenes are a bit strange and not very sparkly, it is almost strange to notice how credible the bond between man and machine develops. It is touching to see how Frank, after a difficult start, increasingly begins to see his robot as a fellow human being. At the same time, it is therefore all the more unfortunate to have to conclude at times that it is merely a pre-programmed robot, no matter how much Frank would like to believe otherwise.

Although ‘Robot & Frank’ is set in the (near) future, you can’t really tell from the film. Apart from the robots, the rest of the setting is as contemporary as can be and while not implausible, the setting isn’t very convincing either. Also the later plot twists of the film were absolutely not necessary. The first part has a very calm pace and that fits the film perfectly, but towards the end ‘Robot & Frank’ falters a bit. Quarrels between son, daughter and father, the police that come along, it’s all really unnecessary and it does the credibility of the story, which was so cleverly portrayed before, not much good. ‘Robot & Frank’ certainly has its beautiful, touching moments, but is unfortunately too erratic to get the maximum result out of this.