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This movie reminds me of numerous quirky indie films that I've seen over the years. It has a definite rom-com veneer, which fits awkwardly over a situation that is much less common, that is, surrogate birth. At first, I was riding along, charmed by the light comedy, without any real villain in the plot. But then the charm wore off for me.

Anna (Patti Harrison) is at a point where she needs a change in her life. She dreams of attending college, and in order to afford it, she hires herself to Matt (Ed Helms) to be a surrogate mother for his child. I'm not sure how this goes in real life, but it definitely feels like Matt is inordinately pushy, inserting himself into Anna's life.

The elephant in the room is that they are both fundamentally lonely people, now producing a child together. Is romance possible? You would hope no, but not necessarily due to the age difference. Anna is in her 20's, and Matt is in his 40's. When the topic finally gets aired, Anna is repulsed by thoughts of Woody Allen's fetish for teenage girls. But Anna is in her 20's so it doesn't quite fit. There is a real analogy though, and it has to do with power imbalance. Anna is, in fact, Matt's employee. So, in any case, it felt good to see that plot option excluded. But was it? Matt seemed a bit chagrined.

It is the character of Matt that really feels off. Is he really going to be a good dad? We are told he is a software engineer who wrote a well-received dating app. Did he sell it and retire? We never see him working. As we see during his baby shower, he has a large support group of family and friends. He seems like a nice guy, so why hasn't he been able to find a life partner? Now he's having a baby, as a cure for his loneliness? If he's still working, will he have to hire an au pair? Uh oh. Have I just guessed what "Together Together 2" will be about?

But I digress. While ruminating those possibilities, I realized that the movie had digressed into a plodding, cliched accounting of a pregnancy. In the end, the movie is just going through the motions.

"Mirage" starts out in most intriguing fashion. A tall building in the New York City skyline goes black. Inside, within the scrambling crowd of office workers, David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) emerges from the dark and immediately gets invited to a spontaneous naughty-in-the-dark party. He demurs, then runs into a co-worker, Josephson (Kevin McCarthy), who engages him with some weird hipster jargon, and then leaves him with the send-off, "don't take any wooden Indians". Peck descends the stairs and meets Shela (Diane Baker) who appears to know him while he has no memory of her. She mentions a mysterious character, "the Major". When he leaves the building, he sees a crowd that has gathered becuuse someone has leapt from the building to his death.

It soon becomes clear that Stillwell is suffering some memory loss, and the Major's henchman (Jack Weston, George Kennedy) are on his trail. He goes to the police, but then he leaves in a huff when they ask for his birthday and place of origin, He subsequently hires a private detective (amiably played by Walter Matthau) to help him sort things out.

At this point, the plot starts to get increasing random and quirky. In two separate situations, Stillwell leaves his pursuers unconscious in odd places. More people start getting killed.

Diane Baker's performance is particularly memorable, beautifully expressive even as the script deprives her of a believable context. It is a bit distracting that she is bedecked with jewelry from Tiffany's, as indicated in the title credits.

The ending leaves more questions than answers, and undermines believability as the contrivances pile up. What was that piece of paper that Stillwell decided to burn? Does it matter?

Overall, "Mirage" has a nice noir set-up with intriguing ingredients but sloppy plotting. Baker's performance adds an extra point, making this 7/10 IMO.

Robby the Robot is the iconic robot of the 1950's, introduced in the sci-fi classic "Forbidden Planet". Fit with a glass dome noggin and plenty visual action, he is a triumph of creative design. MGM decided they wanted to cash in, with this cheap follow-up feature in black-and-white. The plot is a hodgepodge of flimsy skit humor, served up with standard matte visual effects. The relationship between the boy and his parents is cartoonish. The boy is played by Richard Eyer, who doesn't have enough charisma to make the role memorable. (We all remember him in a much better role as the genie in "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" the following year.) The movie is overall a plodding bore. I watched the film recently on TCM, and I noticed a jerky flow to the action, as if the transfer from film to video messed up the frame rate. That didn't help with the overall effect.