[ROBOT AND FRANK opens in Cleveland on Friday August 31st exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]
Review by Matt Finley
There’s no way around it: the stark
reality of gradual cognitive dissolution does not a buoyant cinematic
experience make. Earnest and touching as Sarah Polley’s AWAY
FROM HER may have been, it’s not in my Amazon shopping cart.
Anyone with an afflicted loved one can attest: Alzheimer’s is a
stone-cold drag.
Robots and jewel heists, on the other
hand…
In ROBOT AND FRANK, his first
feature, director Jake Schreier never denies the harsh realities of
Alzheimer’s, but, rather than focus on the broad devastation
of the condition, makes the disease one attribute of a cantankerous
ex-second-story man about whom the film tells a small, hilarious and
heartbreaking story. It’s the best type of speculative fiction,
character-loyal and largely non-didactic, raising sweeping
socio-cultural questions with a tight, self-contained dramatic
narrative that’s confident enough to deliver an emotionally
satisfying ending while leaving the sweeping (and uncertain)
socio-cultural answers for each viewer to contemplate.
