Four stars. Rating: PG-13, and rather needlessly, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.7.12
Science fiction isn’t solely
devoted to opulent spaceship battles and grim post-apocalyptic survival sagas,
despite Hollywood’s best efforts to suggest as much.
 |
| At first, Frank (Frank Langella) can't stand having to share his home with a mechanical "nurse" that monitors what times he gets up each morning, in addition to dozens of other intrusive edicts. But Frank's new companion has other, far more intriguing talents ... and friendships have been built on much less. |
Some of our best cinema sci-fi
has been much quieter and more deeply moving: gentle parables that employ only
modest futuristic touches in order to confront universal truths — often
uncomfortable ones — about the human condition.
These days, as aging baby boomers
contemplate the frightening implications of mental and/or physical
deterioration, we’re seeing a corresponding focus on gerontology issues.
Science fiction has responded in kind.
Robot & Frank is a
whimsical, charming and poignant character study: a film school short expanded
into a full-length feature that enchanted this year’s Sundance Film Festival
audience and went home with the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. The tone of
Christopher D. Ford’s original script — his first big-screen effort — feels
very much like that of a Ray Bradbury story: thoughtful, occasionally poetic
and willing to tackle unsettling topics.
But this slice of elder life is
disarmingly cloaked in the trappings of a mild-mannered comedy, and the story’s
more serious elements sneak up on us. Director Jake Schreier, also making an
impressive feature film debut, paces the narrative quite skillfully; he also
draws persuasive performances from his cast members, most notably star Frank
Langella.
The result, at times, feels like
an intimate stage play. The action is confined mostly to two locations, with a
resulting, subtle sense of claustrophobia that echoes our main character’s
confusion over the way memory loss is shrinking his world.
The setting is “the near future”
in the upstate New York community of Cold Spring. Frank (Langella) lives alone
in an increasingly cluttered home that is nestled in the woods, a comfortable
walk from town. Frank’s grown children, Hunter (James Marsden) and Madison (Liv
Tyler), have grown worried about his apparent inability to care for himself;
his fading memory also plays tricks on him, such as an ongoing desire to dine
at a long-absent local restaurant.
He’s also a kleptomaniac,
occasionally pocketing trinkets from a gift shop and then squirreling them away
in his home wall safe.
