Direction: Maria Schrader
Country: Germany
Maria Schrader’s third feature, I’m Your Man, is a wonderfully bizarre sci-fi rom-com with a polished aesthetic, some architecturally interesting settings, lovely performances, and tragicomic undertones. She re-teams up here with Jan Schomburg in the script, following the successful biopic Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016). The machinations that drive the film, which was based on a short story by Emma Braslavsky, are never too obvious, and both the formal discipline and slow pace are more beneficial than questionable.
At the center of the plot is Alma (Maren Eggert), an archeologist in her mid forties, who, reluctantly, accepts to take an advanced humanoid robot home for three weeks, after which she has to write a report about the experience, answering the question: “are robots suitable as a partner replacement?”
This gallant robot, Tom (Dan Stevens), was programmed to be her perfect partner. He is able to read her slightest reactions and improve his algorithm on how to make her happy. Alma, who is more concerned about her soon-to-be-finished long research and her demented father (Wolfgang Hübsch), shows no enthusiasm in living with this figure, especially after a disappointing software crash during their first date. However, their relationship evolves over the course of the film, to a point where she becomes emotionally confused… more than she ever thought possible.
Comparisons with Spike Jonze’s Her have been made, but the present film, less sad in tone, pushes both the humor and the emotional depth to the foreground through a realistic human/robot interaction and not just a computerized voice.
The rippling musical score by Tobias Wagner is effective, while the central performances of Eggert (Das Experiment, 2001; Marseille, 2004) and Stevens (The Guest, 2014; Apostle, 2018) are of the lofty levels we have come to expect of them. Persuasively made, I’m Your Man is a smart move that elicits both strong thoughts and feelings without ever becoming creepy. Therefore, just let it gnaw at your own humanity.
