Review of Robot & Frank (2012) by Hoops2448 — 22 Apr 2013

All the trailers for Robot and Frank displayed the film as a picture about a retired burglar and his return to stealing thanks to the help of his new robot. However the most important part they missed out is the fact that this is a film that is mostly about senility and the things we lose as we get old and in Frank's case its his memories.

The film follows Frank (Frank Langella) as he struggles to live alone and take care of himself. To help his son (James Marsden) buys him a helper robot who he decides to re purpose into helping him resume his early career in burglary as a way of proving to himself and those around him he isn't past his prime.

In a film that tries so hard to know where it is going its odd to know that much like with Frank, the 3rd act is a blur of incoherent thoughts and ideas that collapse in on themselves due to poor plotting.

The film attempts to portray Frank as endearing yet grouchy really just makes him a bit unlikable but Langella manages to inject some of his charm to offset the problem. Liv Tyler while better in this than in most of her work still doesn't quite belong with her character feeling more like a plot point, more like one side of an argument than a real live person.

What saves the film from being a mess of good ideas and bad execution is the wonderful relationships such as Frank's interaction with his robot, but most of all in his interaction with his son because that is where most of the films emotion an power comes from and Marsden is more than up to the challenge.

Susan Sarandon makes a good foil for Frank but ultimately this is a film about a man losing everything about himself and struggling to come to terms with it while fighting for what little time he has left so it isn't really a film about meeting someone new and settling down, its a film about holding onto the idea of meeting someone new, the idea that Frank's life is still his own and not being consumed by a brain that doesn't work the way it should and because of this it is a heartbreaking emotional picture well worth watching despite its disappointing ending.