Robot And Frank Review

• 2nd Mar 2013

As suggested by the trailer, Robot and Frank is rather an odd tale, but quite a sweet and heart-warming one that any age can appreciate.

Frank lives by himself, visited now and again by his family to check up on him. His mind though it seems is on the wane, Often forgetting little things, but also bigger things like the fact that his son is no longer a student.

His son (James Marsden) then decides that Frank needs a companion to aid him about his day and buys him a robot. Of course this companion is not what frank has in mind, and there is of course the initial grumpy old man response. But the moment that frank finds out that “Robot” can do just about anything, he sets about enlivening his proceedings by teaching his new friend how to be  burglar (Oh yes, Frank has a bit of a corrupt past).

Langella really has taken this role by both hands and waltzes his way through it, always filling the screen with something to cherish. Hi attention to detail in the character is nothing short of sublime. The relationship he has with robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard – but sounding a little like Ben from lost!) is truly the centre of the attention – with his surrounding family (including a hippie daughter played by Liv Tyler) popping in from time to time to show us just how dysfunctional they all are at their own lives, never mind how they try to shape their fathers.

The logic of the plot and how the Robot even functions and responds requires a large leap of faith on the viewers part. Plausible – yes,  but would require some probably mind numbing contrivances to make it fit more in with the story they want to tell. Here they just go for broke and rely on you the viewer to just accept it for what it is.

This is a story of time, how one travels a life in that time; regrets; the sacredness of memory and the abject un-comfort of what the future holds. A film whose formula shouldn’t work, but much like Frank’s broken mind, is still full of plenty to wonder at.

Steven Hurst