I'm Your Man

It is the first date for Alma and Tom. She tests him. Tom is intelligent, funny, perceptive, insightful, charming, good-looking, appreciative of her interests, concerned for her well-being, and even knows her favorite poem by heart. He passes everything Alma throws at him even though she is cold and skeptical. Tom appears to know her better than she knows herself. This is because Tom is an advanced robot created for with one purpose to serve, her happiness.

Tom learns from every moment with Alma and morphs into something better, yet she treats him like a machine or a piece of meat, underestimating him, leaving him to stand in the rain, and turning cliches about men on their head. Perhaps she just needs more time. Spending time in the forest together and looking at pictures of Alma as a child, Tom and Alma could dissolve and become part of something bigger.

I'm Your Man is a different kind of science fiction that, like the Tales from Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, explores the realm of our hearts rather than battlefields on distant planets. The film is complex and well crafted, exploring emotions in a variety of ways, and revolving around themes of free will, fears of being left alone, what it means to love someone, and more. Each component of film making is not neglected. There is a scene looking over the rooftops and spires of Berlin at night that is so beautiful. Maren Eggert (Alma) won a silver bear in Berlin for her performance. The film appeared at the Toronto festival as well.

Summary:

Remarkable film that with great sensitivity and intelligence and from science fiction addresses a mid-life crisis and deconstructs the love bond and romanticism, but without giving it up.

Review

Alma is an anthropologist who works in a Berlin museum doing research on cuneiform writing. To obtain funds, she agrees to participate in a scientific test where she must live for three weeks with an android programmed to satisfy all her wishes.

The film by Maria Schrader (director of the Unorthodox miniseries and the film Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe) manages with this story to combine and reflect on various issues without remaining a mere anecdote.

First of all, the German title, Ich bin dein Mensch, is significant. It is not "dein Mann" (man in the sense of male human) but "dein Mensch", which in German means man, but as a human being in general. And this distinction is relevant for everything that the film addresses. And the "Ich bin" (I am) places the title in the first person of the humanoid.

Of course, the film reflects and acutely on the implications of relating physically and emotionally with a humanoid and algorithms-base affinity and it does so many times in the voice of Alma (an extraordinary Maren Eggert), especially when she speaks with the humanoid Tom (Dan Stevens, beautiful, perfect and measured and speaking in German). And the story is also placed on Tom's side.

But co-writer Maria Schrader goes beyond the plots of the science fiction story and frames it in the midlife crisis that it triggers in Alma, a woman who seems to put all her energy into her profession, who is not recovered from her injuries and that he is capable of a certain aggressive cynicism. And she adds a lucid study on power relations and alterity in love ties, because What does it mean to relate to someone whose main objective is to please us? What kind of link can be established under this premise? Is there an other? Can love and happiness prosper?

The film knows how to raise its questions not only with the spoken word and of course it outlines some answers. But his main merit lies in the realm of the ineffable (there is a remarkable scene in a forest in this sense), in the climates (which include an effective use of comedy) that it knows how to create with a sensitivity and delicacy that at times appear to the abyss and in others to hope, in this story that deconstructs the love bond and romanticism without giving it up.

Greetings again from the darkness. The thing about humans is that we are always looking towards the future to see how we can make things easier, better, or more exciting. This is often with an eye towards more fuel-efficient cars, smaller and more powerful computers, and more effective medical treatments. Writer-director Maria Schrader and co-writer Jan Schomburg have adapted the short story from Emma Braslavsky and turn the lens to relationships and love. Is it possible to advance inter-personal relations to the point of perfection? Would that even be desirable or preferable to the messiness that's gone on since the beginning of time?

It's actually the film's premise that impresses most. Maren Eggert stars as Alma, an Anthropologist who has dedicated years of her life to leading a team documenting the earliest human use of poetry. Alma is a serious and determined woman, and one who bears the scars of a recent breakup. She's drawn into an extraordinary experiment that blends high-tech with sociology. Advanced robots have been developed to become the "perfect" mate, and are programmed specifically for one person. Alma has agreed to the three-week trial, and her robot is Tom (played well by Dan Stevens, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 2017).

Their initial interactions are quite awkward as Alma is skeptical and Tom is programmed to constantly and quickly learn and evolve based on Alma's reactions. Despite Alma's hope for companionship and recognition of her own biological clock, she seems to catch herself anytime she begins to feel a bit of joy. She never imagined that her pursuit of happiness would be dependent on advanced robotics. To monitor the progress, the program's director, played by Sandra Huller (TONI ERDMANN, 2016) periodically checks in. And yes, she holds her own secrets.

This is a clever film that delves a bit deeper into human emotions than we originally anticipate. It also contains quite a bit of humor - the initial dance club introductions are pretty funny, as is Tom's facial expression each time he's tweaking his algorithms. We do learn flirting is "difficult to program", although in today's society, that's a treacherous path anyway. Of course, Alma slowly comes around to the idea of an artificial relationship - one that by definition can never be real. The film is not at the level of EX MACHINA (2014), although it's less about technological advances and more about self-realization. Ms. Schrader's film is plenty entertaining to watch and one that slyly points out many flaws of us human beings, while delivering an unexpected ending.

A German romantic sci-fi comedy. This could be terrible I hear you say. It is not. It's bloody marvellous. Alma (Maren Eggert) is a scientist who's reluctantly got herself embroiled in an experiment to live with a robot, a new humanoid to study its... his, learning capabilities and how he might function as a life partner. She's skeptical to say the least, but Tom (Dan Stevens) is very charming and her studies stand to benefit if she goes along with it. On the surface it sounds clinical, but there's warmth at its heart. Much like Stevens who makes a great robot. He's delightfully innocent and knowledgable in equal measure. Designed to be perfectly tailored for Alma, her reluctance brings a game like quality to their interactions. Together they make a great screen team and have me smiling, chuckling and even laughing out loud on several occasions. If you want to be cynical, there are a few glaring plot holes, but not a single one matters. Tom is carefree, wide eyed, wants to live. Most of all he wants this for Alma too. Her life isn't quite that easy to fix though. Her soul's been trained to crave it's own space, her trust near impossible to attain. Too many things in her life haven't worked out. There's a "Deep and insurmountable gulf" between them, but perhaps these things about Alma are the very things that might bridge that gulf. A beautifully played modern love story. With a beautiful piano score. Balancing sentiment and reality wonderfully.

Germany's official entry to 2022's Oscars is great, original, poetic and deep. Its romantic story is brilliant and philosophical, it opens up so many important questions. Performances are superb. This film is just well made, highly entertaining and so powerful.