ScreenCrave - Yet another one of my Top 5 Film Picks coming through. This film was exactly what I was hoping for: witty, funny, meaningful, enlightened and brilliantly acted by Frank Langella. The film takes a high concept premise and a character driven plot and turns it into a wonderfully executed experience.
Frank is an an ex-con who is slowly loosing the grasp over the reality. He is forgetful, unable to take care of himself and proud. He lives an uneventful life in his house. Frank's son is unwilling to commit him to elderly care. But he knows that his father is heading towards a miserable existence if he does not find a way to engage him. Frank needs a friend. And his son will buy him one.
I loooovveedddd this movie. An innocent little heist film with a twist at the end that was actually very sad. Check this out if you havent already.
Yep the ending was quite sad. The decision that Frank had to take became very tough given his condition. Don't want to spoil it for anyone else so I won't write about it here. But yeah definitely check this movie out.
TF:
Playful, patient and finally poignant, Schreier’s deceptively placid odd-couple winner runs the risk of looking minor. But it carefully exceeds expectation, helped in no small measure by Langella’s wily, wistful lead.
This was hands down the best scifi film released last year, and it didn't even involve alien invasions, dystopic futures, or convoluted time travelling.
Bone-idle writes "At around the halfway point in Robot and Frank, the robot from the title has a conversation with a library copier machine, asking it how it is, and then reassuring it that it too is doing quite well. It then looks back at Frank, who laughs a little awkwardly before sending it away. It seems strange that in a film that promotes itself as being both hilarious and heartbreaking, this is probably the most amusing scene. It isn’t heartbreaking, but it does feel a little sad that a film with such potential as this doesn’t rise to the heights it seems more than capable of."
