Je suis ton homme

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.

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.

And a very advanced one at that, at least in the movie. In an undisclosed time frame, in cosmopolitan Berlin, artificial intelligence has evolved to the point that robots are indistinguishable from humans. A persnickety academic, Alma (Maren Eggert, in a frosty performance I found endearing) is asked to bring such a specimen home, and report back whether it is suitable for long term companionship, not just as a super efficient cook or housekeeper, but as a partner, a lover.

Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) plays the robot Tom, and his performance is a delightful blend of dry witticisms and self-deprecating humor, aware that humans expect a robotic concoction from a 1950s sci-fi movie, and having fun bursting the balloon, although Tom does experience a few glitches along the way. I'm Your Man aims higher than slapstick love machinations. It selectively doles out rom-com tropes, but also finds a poignancy while delicately posing the question of what it means to be human, and whether the artificial version might be as good or better than the real thing.

It would make a good double bill with "Making Mr. Right".

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.

'I'm your man' is funny, it's charming, it's entertaining but also insigthful when it needs to be, it's exactly what I wanted from the film's description.

In order to obtain research funds for her anthropology studies, Alma reluctantly accepts an offer to participate in an extraordinary experiment: for three weeks, she is to live with Tom, a humanoid robot created to make her happy.

Tom meets Alma at "a bar" which we quickly learn is an event designed to capture romantic feelings, a façade to initially test the A. I. flirting mecanisms and interactions with humans, the whole ordeal is a failure and this is just the beginning of Tom's rocky relationship with an unenthusiastic Alma.

Although Tom is design to be her dream guy, the "socially awkward" robot interactions of the first half of the film are some of the most funny and meaningful parts of the film. Tom is full of corny compliments, he's protective, he plans her ideal date nights, he does all her household chores, he is perfect... he's boring. But we quickly learn Tom's system is designed to learn from her responses and will truly become her ideal match... or will he?

The film definitely touches many themes we have seen explored before, but it displays their elements very cleverly even mixing some moments of tragedy but with a more optimistic approach to story than I initially expected from the film. 'I'm your man' escapes the cliché of technology turning against humanity and has more of an emotional approach to the characters bond, as the main conflict doesn't necessarily lies on Alma's 'abusing' the system with this relationship which leads to their downfall but more on her current inability to open up- overcoming her history and a new chance to accept that type of interaction into her life (again), with someone who may not entirely comprehend her emotional baggage at first... but he may be able to if given the chance.

Maybe the parts related to Alma's past and current job situation wasn't was interesting to me as the main relationship was, but the themes of her scientific work definitely added a layer of depth to her relationship with Tom. The film has the ending everyone expects though... it is the type of thing we have seen before, but the last scene is quite impactful.

Maren Eggert and Dan Stevens are great leads for this film, they have a lot of chemistry and even the akwardness of their interactions is insanely entertaining. I didn't even know I liked Dan Stevens until I saw him speaking german and acting robotic.

'I'm your man' is a good choice if you are looking for a fun rom-com with a bit more phylosophical depth to its plot.