When someone goes
out of his way to recommend a film to me, I hesitate to see it. What
if I think it stinks and I hurt that person's feelings?
Someone went
out of his way to recommend Robot & Frank to me.
Here's the story:
it's the near future. Dracula (Frank Langella) has given up his
vampirism and is now a sad, lonely old man with dementia. The
highlight of his week is walk to the local library, where he flirts
with librarian Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon). Oh, to be young and
living in a castle again!
Anyway, Langella's
son (James Marsden) worries about him, so he buys him a semi-anthropomorphic robot to
help out around the house. Langella regains his vigor and decides to
reembark on a previous career (with the robot's help): high-end jewel
thief.
That's about the
time I fell asleep. When I woke up, the third act was getting
started. I gutted it out, but I never got into the film.
I fell asleep
because Robot & Frank never gave me a reason to care about
Frank, beside the fact that he was played by an actor who had once
delivered one of cinema's greatest Transylvanian counts. Since I
didn't care about him, I didn't care about what happened to him.
When I returned to the film after my short doze, nothing happened to
change that fact.
Sorry, buddy. I
wish had liked it.
