Eve

Great concept but not very well made. The acting of the male lead is wooden, he seems mute throughout the film, as does the 'robot girl', who isn't particularly attractive (wouldn't a female robot girl be 'perfect'?). Content-wise there's nothing really going on, despite the film's self-important tone. There's nothing really to challenge the viewer, and there's no sex. This filmmaker's idea of daring cinema is to have a 'Benny Hill' moment of the male lead peeking up his robot girlfriend's dress. Understated and sombre is OK, but this film doesn't seem to tackle anything interesting. Neither is it particularly well made: the acting, the writing, the sets, the special effects, nothing in this film is convincing.

'Eve' tells the story of a robot girl whose human owner realizes he's fallen in love with her just when she's starting to break down. Despite pressure to replace her with a more 'modern' robot, he just can't bring himself do it. I give credit to writer/director Paul Leeming for making a short film that's not a gimmick but a science-fiction love story, something Australian filmmaker's would rarely tackle.

The film features strong performances from the leads; Tara Clark is very convincing, and brings both a mechanical quality and a child-like presence to the role of Eve, while Adam J. Yeend plays the conflicted Mark with a certain coldness and brings a lot of pain to his character. The film does contain some nudity in the opening but it was tastefully done and something I thought added another dynamic to the relationship of Mark and Eve.

In the end, I don't think the film quite manages to pull off what it set out to do but it's a story that could definitely be explored further. The film is beautifully shot, scored, well acted, and is for once trying to do something different.