Robot & Frank

Robot & Frank is an American indie film from 2012. Tragicomedy plays " in the near future " and is about the friendship between the slightly demented Frank, an aging jewel thief, and his care robots Robot. The premiere of the film took place on January 20, 2012 at the Sundance Film Festival. The theatrical release in the United States was on August 17, 2012 the German cinema release on 25 October 2012.

Action

Frank was formerly one of the most famous jewel thieves and burglars in the United States. Now he has aged and become a bumbling misfits. He steals a long time no more jewels, but only steals from a shop carved decorative soaps. He also visited the only still remaining customer, the local library and looking forward to the encounters with the librarian Jennifer. However, even there, the future has changed all that, Jennifer is already a library robot named Mr. Darcy to the side, all the books are digitized and the library will be transformed into a cultural center because of the declining interest in print media.

The film is set " in the near future ," as appears at the beginning, still looks remarkably similar to the present. However, there are already humanoid robot of considerable intelligence, which are used in all places. Frank's children believe that her father can no longer cope alone his life and looking for an alternative. Therefore Someday son Hunter brings his father to the care robots VGC -60L, which Franks everyday messes.

After initial rejection, Frank soon realizes that Robot is programmed to increase Frank's love of life and well-being. He communicates in natural language and submits Frank proposals to encourage him to physical activities. Instead of gardening proposed by Robot Frank interested but more for activities outside the law. The viewer is confronted with the ethical question faced whether a robot is based on the well-being of its associated person consistently or parent legal rules. At the end of Robot assisted in the preparation of the next raid: In order to win the affection of the librarian Jennifer, the two steal the most valuable book of the library, a historic edition of Cervantes Don Quixote. Frank's daughter, Madison, who is doing a philanthropic journey through Turkmenistan, finds Robots presence ethically reprehensible and calls for its abolition. Frank, however, on his robot. With him, he steals the jewels of the rich library handler Jake.

Now Frank makes even suspicious to the police. The proof of his deed is located in the memory, the memory of the robot. The only way - which also suggests Robot quite rational - is to switch off the robot and delete his memory. The rejects from Frank, because " He is my friend," he says; a friend can not just turn off you. Now it comes to the chase, after the end of Frank in a nursing home comes. There, human nurses are considered obsolete and each inmate is assigned a personal robot. At the end it turns out that the librarian Jennifer Franks is a wife, from whom he is divorced for 30 years and that of dementia has no longer recognized.

Background

With the original conception of the story for the film Christopher D. Ford had begun in 2002. Jake Schreier and he viewed the rapid development of robot technology and its impact on the daily lives of ordinary people. Schreier is of the view that technology is neither good nor bad, but they change the way we enter into relationship with one another, this development can no longer be stopped.

The VGC -60L robot created Alterian, a company from Los Angeles who designed the costumes of the French House formation Daft Punk. He bears a striking resemblance to the robot ASIMO developed by Honda, in its interior acted the actress Rachael Ma. It seems unlikely that future humanoid robots will follow this design concept. The decision for the robot design has explained dramatic causes, such as the director Jake Schreier: "The film is strongly based on the human ability to transfer emotion to objects. [ ... ] The design of the robot, we assumed that less is more. "

The vehicle, which Frank at the beginning of the film met on the street, the electric car by Commuter Cars Tango. The futuristic smartphones and tablet computers in the film were designed by Justin Ouellette on Tumblr.

In the credits of the film excerpts are shown from research by, for example, the Komuro - hand from the University of Tokyo and the robot ARMAR III from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ( KIT).

Awards

Jake Schreier and Christopher D. Ford's first feature film received critical acclaim for screenplay, production and performer. In 2012 he won at the Sundance Film Festival along with Valley of Saints by Musa Syeed the right conferred by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for outstanding feature films on the subject of Science and Technology Alfred P. Sloan Prize.

Reviews

" Amusing mix of science fiction, Heist and buddy movie, which designs the credible scenario of a not too distant future. With gentle humor and a sovereign protagonist of the film tells the story of an unusual friendship and takes human weaknesses and strengths in the view. "

" Frank Langella [ provides ] a fabulous one-man show as a Don Quixote in the fight against aging. There is evidence of mischievous irony when a future objectors, the against his bitter opposition a nursing robot is imposed, will take place this his only friend -. , And loses again "

" As gently as in this film, the boundary line between man and machine has probably never been pulled. In the western cinema else outshines the robot figure mostly the human characters, but here people and machines meet as equals. "

" Jake Schreier's idiosyncratic debut film, Robot & Frank ' a patient suffering from memory loss old man now takes up this discussion on the Human on people with lofty irony and mild twist towards the serious theories of the eighties again and leaves - in an entertaining screenplay by Christopher D. Ford - again a struggle against the machine memory capacity [ take ] the human memory, which is cheerful lost at the end. "

" Frank Langella plays Frank as an intelligent, introverted men of action, where the extent of his mental deterioration in some intensively played key scenes is clear. [ ... ] Schreier also maintains in his melancholy borne mood. "

" A burglar comedy with sci-fi elements, connected to a drama over the aging, loneliness and Alzheimer's - that sounds like, as would be because someone can not decide what he really wants to shoot. Idiosyncratic Robot & Frank is also, in the end maybe even a bit bumpy, but the film combines beautifully funny situation comedy with thoughtful, insightful moments and can eventually convince even by great performers. "

2012 in film Film score Jeremy Strong (actor) Valley of Saints (film) Buddy-Film
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