Director Report Card: Jake Schreier (2025)

3. Thunderbolts*

When it was announced that Jake Schreier would be the next director to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe family, most people responded with a simple "Who?" Which isn't to say that Schreier hadn't been busy since "Paper Towns" established him as an up-and-comer, just that he hadn't become especially well known. His Francis and the Lights connection got him music video gigs for superstars like Kanye, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Haim, and Kendrick Lamar. That's presumably how he ended up directing the concert film, "Chance the Rapper's Magnificent Coloring World." Out of my completist compulsions, and not because I'm familiar at all with Mr. the Rapper's music, I tried to locate that one for this Report Card but it doesn't seem to be available since its 2021 theatrical run. Probably most importantly to Disney/Marvel, who produce movies a lot like how they produce TV shows, Schreier had also proven himself as a reliable television director. He had multi-episode runs on critically acclaimed series like "Lodge 49," "Brand New Cherry Flavor," and "Beef," among spots on other edgy cable/streaming shows I've never heard of. Being long time friends with the guy who made Marvel some "Spider-Mans" probably didn't hurt either. Whatever convinced them, Schreier is the latest indie director plucked out of obscurity by the big budget superhero factory. 

The project he would be asked to steer was the Thunderbolts. In the comics, the Thunderbolts were originally a group of B-list supervillains who – after the Avengers disappeared into a crossover event singularity – began masquerading as heroes. They soon discover that doing good feels good and quickly take their con legit. That probably would've made for a pretty fun movie, with the current Avenger-less state of the MCU and traditional team leader Baron Zemo already existing in-universe presenting an easy set-up. Despite the clever premise, the team has been subjected to a constantly shifting line-up and frequent changes in direction. Eventually, they would mutate into something like Marvel's answer to DC's Suicide Squad, a group of supervillains seeking redemption alongside other ragtag misfits. That's the direction the movie seemed to take, drawing its roster mostly from the forgettable "Black Widow" movie, alongside Bucky, the antagonist from "Ant-Man and the Wasp," and a guy who debuted in one of the streaming series. 

It was, in other words, not the most promising set-up for a blockbuster. "Thunderbolts" felt a lot like superhero table scraps to me, a remnant of Marvel's assumption that the general public was way more invested in spin-offs about minor supporting characters than they truly were. Unsurprisingly, the cinematic "Thunderbolts*" – the title hassled with an asterisk for easily foreseen reasons – was subjected to extensive reshoots and repeated delays. This did little to raise my expectations for the latest entry into a once-ubiquitous pop culture force that seems to be floundering in recent years. Nor did it change the perception that Jake Schreier was another young, pliable, powerless director chosen by the Marvel Machine because he could be pushed around by the producers who actually make these movies. Well, "Thunderbolts*" is out now. People seem to actually like it, so either I was wrong or the studio managed to build up enough buzz to slightly re-inflate the superhero bubble.

Former Black Widow Yelena Belova works as an assassin for openly corrupt CIA director, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Yelena, depressed since the death of her sister and alienated from superhero father figure Alexei/Red Guardian, seeks a change in her life. She accepts one last job from Val, repelling into a underground lab called the Vault. There, she runs into disgraced would-be Captain America John Walker and matter-shifting supervillainess Ghost. They quickly deduce that they have all been sent to kill each other and then be incinerated. See, Val is facing impeachment from her dealings with shifty bioweapons corp the O.X.E. Group and she hopes to clean up all loose ends. That includes Bob, a mysterious and seemingly mundane guy Yelena discovers in the Vault. Bob, however, is the lone survivor of O.X.E. Group's program to engineer their own superhero and soon reveals threateningly vast powers. Yelena, Walker, Ghost and the summoned Alexei get scooped up by Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier turned senator seeking to put Val behind bars. The makeshift team realizes how dangerous Valentina's plans for Bob – now positioned as a mega-powerful "hero" called the Sentry – are and set out to stop them before disaster occurs. 

Shortly after completing the first “Guardians of the Galaxy,” James Gunn mentioned the Thunderbolts as another Marvel title he might be interested in. Supposedly, he scratched that itch after making “The Suicide Squad.” This information will do nothing to dissuade those who claim all of Gunn's superhero movies are the same. Despite the fact that he's running the Distinguished Competition now, Gunn's fingerprints are all over “Thunderbolts*.” This is another story of a group of misfits, thrown together by fate. Most of them dislike each other at first but soon learn to see their good sides. They're up against a threat way more powerful than them but prove uniquely suited to the challenge. By the end, you can already sees the threads of a make-shift family forming. I don't mind Marvel trying to recreate “Guardians of the Galaxy's” formula but it is a little disappointing to see these very different characters fit inside that same mold. For example, it would've been cool if “Thunderbolts*” had touched upon the Sentry's main gimmick in the comics. That he appears as if he's always been there, a new character that everyone remembers being a great hero for years. One imagines scenes from past Marvel movies with the Sentry hastily added into them, for example. 

Despite the obvious debt “Thunderbolts*” owes to to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, this superhero project eventually finds its own approach. The Guardians were anti-heroes and outcast. This gang is much more dysfunctional. Yelena is deeply depressed and nursing a drinking problem. Alexei lives in a crappy apartment and has a day job driving a crappy cab. Walker doom-scrolls articles about his own failures, his self-pity causing his wife to leave him and take their kid. Bob is the biggest fuck-up yet, thoroughly traumatized by a shitty childhood with drug abuse and constant instability in his past. Bucky Barnes is, by far, the most stable of the group... And he's depicted as living alone, socially awkward, bad at his day job, and forced to do mundane chores like put his robot arm in the dish washer. This approach leans into what was one of my concerns about the film, that its cast of characters were underwhelming cast-offs. To paraphrase an earlier film about an idiosyncratic team of crimefighters: They are not your classic superheroes, not the favorites, the ones nobody bets on. They're the other guys. 

The ensemble being connected by their mutual statuses as depressed, former or not-so-former substance abusers, with no personal lives does something else unexpected. It makes “Thunderbolts*” a snap-shot of the national mood. Alexei and Walker cling to past successes, in order to protect their fragile egos from the inadequacies they are all too aware of. This behavior alienates those they love, despite a desperation to connect with them. Bob doesn't even have a family to be alienated from, left mentally crippled from a lifetime of mistakes. A past full of pain have left them all unable to function as adults. Yelena's squalor, boozing, and constantly messy appearance brings internet lingo like “girl-rotting” to mind. In other words: These guys are typical millennials. They are well into adulthood without having acquired any of the status signifiers their parents had at this age. Demeaning jobs they resent are all that keep them going. Here in 2025, a lot of us feel like man-children and femcels, or at least have in the past. It's unusual to see this feeling reflected in a big budget superhero movie.

That unresolved trauma, and their stubborn refusal to resolve it, deserves most of the blame for our motley crew of heroes being like this. However, it's also not totally their faults. They were born into a world they had no control over. It's the same world where they are powerless against the whims of tyrannical politicians. Those in power openly break the law without fear of repercussions. If consequences – such as the lingering threat of impeachment – do appear, what's to stop these leaders from wiggling free of punishment simply by breaking more laws? If the Thunderbolts are heroes of our time, than slimy, condescending, possibly insane, strangely magnetic, and utterly petty Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is a stand-in for the political leaders of our time. It's difficult not to be an emotionally arrested fuck-up when our president is a conniving crook invested only in his own money and power.  

While Val is the manipulator behind these events, she's ultimately less dangerous than the threat she unleashes. Rather than the spectre of fascism or disease, the big bad in “Thunderbolts*” Is The Void: In the comics, that's the alternate personality of the Sentry, the antithesis of an ultimate hero. Here, the Void becomes a symbol of the depression dragging Bob – and all the protagonists – down. He's depicted as a suffocating blackness, that makes people disappear as they are sucked into its depth. Once within, they are surrounded by painful memories that they can't escape. They are repeatedly reminded of all the mistakes they can't forgive themselves for. It's a potent metaphor for clinical depression. And intrusive thoughts and OCD and anxiety and every other chemical imbalance in our brains that tells us we aren't good enough, that makes you feel like non-existence is preferable to living.

If it feels like the film is getting into pop-psychology territory here, “Thunderbolts*” does not resist such tendencies. A scene where Yelena has an intense conversation/breakdown with her dad utilizes some therapy-speech clichés. Bob can't defeat his Void by physically confronting it. That only leads to self-destruction. Instead, the crushing loneliness can only be held at bay with friends, family, a support net of people who love and support and teach you how to love and support yourself. The metaphor gets a little overly literal by the climax. If “Thunderbolts*” is overly reliant on our modern pandemic of being too analyzed and no less neurotic, this is at least also reflective of the generational condition it seeks to capture.

“Thunderbolts*” isn't only seeking to stretch millennial self-doubt across larger-than-life superhero metaphors. It also represents the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a very self-aware mood. Valentina's end game is to engineer a perfect hero, the ultimate one-man Avenger team that is personally at her beck-and-call. She thinks Bob's history of mental illness will make him easier to control, underestimating the power of the Void. But there's a more obvious truth here: You can't build a hero in a laboratory. The last five years has seen Disney/Marvel take an especially mercenary approach to expanding its cinematic universe, attempting to create a new wave of Avengers that could take the place of the first generation of charismatic, beloved characters and keep those billions rolling in. It hasn't exactly worked out and it remains to be seen how many of the future storylines the studio has set-up will now be paid off on. The Sentry appearing as a made-by-committee do-gooder that proves to be a monstrous failure feels like a commentary on this tactic. 

While I'm sure “Thunderbolts*” was as designed in a boardroom as much as any of Marvel Studios' other capeshit, it does try and resist the overly work-shopped and dissected feeling the last few MCU flicks have had. In fact, the plot here is refreshingly ramshackle in a lot of ways. Nearly the entire first half of the movie is devoted to Yelena and her new team mates simply trying to escape the Vault. The characters truly do feel thrown together by coincidence, including a seventh cast member that is quickly disposed of. (If another example of the MCU tossing away another iconic comic character.) From here on out, the plot almost plays out in real time, feeling like the cast is flying by the seat of their pants as they desperately race against time. This allows the film to zero in on its ensemble and to create a propulsive story that is always moving forward. 

When writing about “Paper Towns,” I asked if any of the style Jake Schreier showed in “Robot & Frank” was evident in a more studio-driven project. That question is far more pertinent to a big budget action movie from a company somewhat notorious for bland looking motion pictures. I don't think Schreier and cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo go especially far distinguishing the film visually from previous superhero shenanigans. The action sequence suggest that Schreier might have been a little out of his depth here. Some of the scuffles and gun-fights are either a little too chaotic or too stationary, such as a moment where the Sentry deflects the entire team in one held shot. Some scenes do look solid, such as an explosion filled car chase, but I'd probably describe “Thunderbolts*” as a passable action flick, at best. 

However, I do think Jake Schreier potential has decent chops as a horror movie director. The most striking visual of the film is how the Void is depicted, as a totally detail-free shadow save for a pair of pin-point lights at the eyes. That's a creepy, memorable image. It is accompanied by the sight of people vanishing into the spreading cloud of depression in a puff of smoke that burns their shadows into the ground. By the time the heroes have plunged into the Void themselves, they are reliving their worst memories. They grow increasingly surreal, such as when Yelena finds herself unable to escape her most shameful recollection. To the point that the scenery comes to life and holds her there. These moments are well-done and mildly creepy too, suggesting that Schreier was probably more at home crafting these scenes than the explosions and shoot-outs. 

Say what you will about Marvel Studios but they are usually good at casting their films. “Thunderbolts*” has a lovable cast, built-up over the course of the previous installments, and lets them mostly bounce off each other in amusing ways. Florence Pugh manages to bring a pathos and patheticness to Yelena, while never having us doubt her abilities as a competent warrior. David Harbour's goofball father act is expanded on from “Black Widow,” being a little more personable and a little less silly while still utilizing the actor's avuncular charm. Sebastian Stan becomes a likeably dead-pan straight man to the antics around him, approaching most of what happens with resigned shock and a lack of surprise. Wyatt Russell walks a fine line with John Walker, the U.S. Agent being both an asshole and a broken person that slowly wins the audience over. Lewis Pullman – that's Bill's son, by the way – proves surprisingly likable and relatable as Bob, his flaws all too human. The only member of the Thunderbolts that feels shortened is Hannah john-Kamen as Ghost. She's mostly merely there, getting a handful of moments to herself without being allowed too many chances to shine on her own. 

It is also to “Thunderbolts*'” benefit that the film feels surprisingly stand-alone. Despite being the follow-up to at least seven previous movies and two streaming mini-series, the film never feels burdened by continuity and past events too much. As long as you've seen “Black Widow” and know who Bucky is, you'll probably be able to follow this one. The weight of being the latest cog in a massive corporate franchise does eventually drag the film down. Right before the credits start rolling, the film ends abruptly and leaves its main antagonist off the hook, to make way for further adventures. Still, compared to the bland universe-weaving of “The Marvels” and the hopelessly reshuffled “Captain America: Brave New World,” “Thunderbolts*” is both a lot of fun and heartfelt. Schreier is already being courted for more Marvel movies, based on the strengths of this one. I'd hate to see him totally consumed by these kind of theatrics but “Thunderbolts*” is a good time at the movies nevertheless. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Jake Schreier (2015)

2. Paper Towns

What is now called "young adult literature" has existed for decades but has, over the last fifteen years or so, become a weirdly decisive topic. Franchises like "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" were cultural phenomena. The flaws of those books have become more apparent as time has passed, made all the more evident by a fan base of not-so-young adult readers who stubbornly refuse to move on. Whether this is a result of the death grip corporate nostalgia has on the world today or a sign of a growing immaturity among people who should know better is hotly debated, ad nauseum, every single day on the internet. Maybe I'm a little more in the trenches for this tiring, non-stop argument than most, being a writer type guy myself. If it's a dispiriting sign of society's on-going infantilization or simply a harmless safe space for nerdy millennials traumatized by our failing American dream, "Y.A. fiction" isn't going anywhere. The popularity of this genre is obvious in how the movement has produced its own superstars. I am talking about John Green, whose – let's-call-it "distinctive" – authorial voice and reoccurring obsessions have made him loathed by certain cultural critic types but also insanely popular. "The Fault in Our Stars," since its publication in 2012, has sold twenty-three million copies. That's more than "The Godfather," "Jaws," and "Pride and Prejudice." In a time when a lot of people don't seem interested in reading physical books at all, that's an extraordinary success. The 2014 film adaptation was also a huge hit, officially making Green's work a cultural movement of its own, ready to be heavily scrutinized and argued about. 

By which I mean John Green is a thing now, made all the more polarizing by the popularity of his YouTube presence as well. Love him or hate him, nothing succeeds like success. "The Fault in Our Stars" – which, personally speaking, I would describe thoroughly as "not for me" – becoming a best seller meant Green's other books, past and present, also became hits. The "Fault in Our Stars" movie being a blockbuster encouraged further cinematic adaptations of Green's work. While "Looking For Alaska" and "Turtles All the Way Down" were shuffled off to various streaming services, where old guys like me could safely ignore them, the movie version of "Paper Towns" came to theaters in 2015. This reignited the debate over Green's merits and flaws as a writer. All of this overlooks that the "Paper Towns" movie is also the work of director Jake Schreier, his second feature film after "Robot & Frank." Is any of the charm and preciseness that made Schreier's debut so charming visible at all in "Paper Towns" or does the overwhelmingly John Green-ness of it all supersede any other voice at work here? 

In a humble suburb outside Orlando, Florida, Quentin “Q” Jacobsen has lived his entire life across the street from Margo Roth Spiegelman. Inseparable as kids, Q and Margo would drift apart after the traumatic experience of stumbling upon a dead body. Now, as a teenager, Q is a socially awkward nerd with an unrequited life-long crush on Margo, whom he hasn't talked to in years. Unprompted, one night Q's teenage existence is interrupted by Margo climbing in his bedroom window. She leads him on a night of adventure, Q helping her get petty and whimsical revenge on her high school enemies. It reignites his crush on the girl... And then she vanishes. Margo's habit of living clues and secret messages for her little sister inflames Q's mania. He follows a series of cryptic riddles the girl left behind and comes to the conclusion that Margo has fled to Agloe, New York. That's a paper town, a place that only exists on a map but nevertheless corresponds to a real world location. Alongside his best friends Ben and Radar, Q sets out on a road trip to be reunited with the girl of his dreams. 

I can't speak for “Paper Towns: The Book” but the film adaptation exists solidly within the boundaries of its genre. That would be a specific subsection of the coming-of-age story, which I will call the end of high school narrative. Q and his buddies are about to graduate. They are the type of young people who lack any upward social mobility and the rite of passage of graduation means their lives are about to change forever. Accordingly, everything they do is heavy with importance. Radar's girlfriend, Angela, leaves on the road trip with the guys and they end up giving their virginity to each other during a stop-off. A former friend of Margo's, an extremely photogenic young lady named Lacey, slowly develops a bond with Ben during the same trip, becoming his prom date. Prom is treated with utmost importance throughout “Paper Towns,” the climax of these characters' teenage existences up to this point. Q wanting to mask Margo to prom is part of why he pursues her. All of this means that “Paper Towns” is a story full of young people learning life lessons that they will carry with them always. It's a bit like if “The Sure Thing” had “Say Anything...'s” sense of self-importance.

No aspect of “Paper Towns,” and Green's entire body of work, is more hotly debated than his use of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. Born long ago, back when the AV Club was still good, the term and corresponding concept has become pervasive and overused. We are now long past the point of the phrase's creator apologizing for coining it, well into our eighteenth year of MPDG discourse. Despite the constant criticism and deconstruction and subsequent re-construction, the trope remains undying. It seems we – and by "we," I mean predominantly male screenwriters and authors and the likewise audiences they cater to – are unable to quit these obsessively quirky, psychologically vacant, fantastically aspirational ladies who devote themselves to improving the lives of sad, milquetoast white boys. Despite being made all the way in 2015, when the idea had already been run into the ground, “Paper Towns” employs the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope without any irony. This is another story of a nerdy, withdrawn but soulful young man whose life is shaken up by a young woman so effervescently eccentric that she is practically a magical entity, not of this Earth at all. 

Many elements of the character make Margo Spiegelman a textbook MPDG. Her ways are strange and inexplicable, her coming and going out of the protagonist's life like a changing wind. Her tendency to leave hints and clues behind makes her seem all the more like an otherworldly trickster, a puzzle for the hero to unravel. The string of pranks she performs that night with Q are wacky and whimsical, functioning as life lessons as much as acts of retribution. What truly makes Margo a straight example of this dehumanizing cliché is that the character refuses to come into sharp focus. Margo doesn't exist as her own person. She's a series of traits, without any interior thoughts, intentionally remaining far off and vague. We see her only as Q sees her, as a mischievous spirit and a goal to achieve. She remains a reflection of other people's thoughts and feelings, without any true depth of her own. “Paper Towns” is Quentin's story, not Margo's, and she is accordingly sidelined. 

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is like any other cliché. It's part of the writer's toolbox and can be used well, given the right circumstances and a properly skillful talent. Casting the right actress for a part, one that can be as enchanting and ethereal to the viewer as she is the character, is important. This was the break-out performance for Cara Delevingne, the model-turned-actress that Hollywood decided was its newest It Girl in the middle of last decade. Delevingne's wide-eyed appearance has a suitably fey-like look, which she matches with an energetic performance. I don't think it's enough to overcome the shortcomings of the tropes at play here. I also don't think it's Delevingne's fault. She's a decent actress and does decent work with what she's given. You understand why Q becomes so fixated on her. That “Paper Towns” leaves me asking questions like “Would I, personally, drive across the country for this girl?” suggests that the script is lacking an essential something to make its characters and premise seem fully real. 

I suppose that is my biggest problem with “Paper Towns.” During the predictable end-of-the-second-act schism where Quentin is questioning his own motivation and abandoned by his friends, I found myself wondering: What is driving this guy? What in his heart is specifically fired up by Margo? What are his goals and aspirations in life, outside of getting the girl? The film is not able to ultimately answer any of these questions. Q is devoted to Margo because the script says he is. Again, I would not blame Nat Wolff's performance for this. He's a charming enough lead, playing the role of a milquetoast nerd that is, despite his social awkwardness, capable of great courage and insight. Wolff can deliver dialogue sharply and has good chemistry with his co-stars. I don't mind following this guy around for ninety minutes, despite Quentin never quite coming to life as especially distinctive either. The star is charming but the character is ultimately not given the depth needed to make this story soar and to justify the emotions it invokes. 

A lot of “Paper Towns” was like that for me. The film comes close to rising above the formulas without ever quite getting there. Another example is the story's use of the road trip. The road trip is an inherently cinematic concept, a constantly moving narrative that is powered by the energy of local color and the romance of the open road. The cliché about road trip stories is that it's about the journey, not the destination. This is, weirdly, not true about “Paper Towns” at all. We see very little of the places Q and his boys drive through on their way to Agloe. Most of the miles passes through in montages of the boys advancing across the map. The result is a road trip movie that ends up feeling like it doesn't feature much of the actual road trip. This results in "Paper Towns" being a movie sharply divided in two, between the set-up of Quentin falling in love with Margo and the long drive to find her, the latter half clearly getting less attention. Maybe this is the result of adapting a novel, which can spend more time on digressions along the highway than a feature film required to run two hours can. 

Aside from the debatable dream girls that appear in the pages of his books, the other thing people criticize John Green for is his reliance about pseudo-profound observations about life. His characters have internal monologues full of statements about existence that seem deep to someone who hasn't read a book before. These are books striving to be meaningful, to teach the reader lessons that will stick with them forever, in poetic but accessibly quippy language. The cinematic adaptation of "Paper Towns" is full of this too. Because it's a movie, it can pair Q's passages with soaring music and wistful visuals. The final scene is montage of Quentin reflecting on what he's learned and the nature of life and how people like Margo effect those around them. Schreier's film actually does an okay job of keeping this maudlin streak from getting too intolerable before being consumed by it in the final minutes. We were a few minutes away from the credits before "Paper Towns" made me roll my eyes especially hard but that eye-rolling voided a lot of the positive feelings I had before that moment.

That's the most frustrating thing about 'Paper Towns:" it's actually a decent movie for most of its runtime. Rather than the longing he feels for Margo, the friendship Q shares with his pals is a lot more vividly depicted. Scenes of the three guys sarcastically launching into the rendition of the "Pokemon" theme song or trying to keep a drunken Ben from embarrassing himself too much at a party are highlights of the movie. Somewhere within "Paper Towns'" didactic, mildly sexist DNA, there is a charmingly sloppy, "Superbad"-esque ribald comedy about never having any friends like the ones who had at eighteen. Nat Wolff – recognizable to any Gen-Zers reading this as one half of the Naked Brothers Band – has a lived-in, energetic chemistry with Austin Adams and Justice Smith, both of whom are equally charming as Ben and Radar. Am I saying that this movie would have been better if it rejected the thesis of the book and decided to be about how the friends you already have are more valuable than the unattainable dream girl you've placed unrealistic, patriarchal expectations upon? Probably not but I would've liked it more. 

That I've mentioned Green's book and his prevailing style more throughout this review than Jake Schreier answers the question I poised at the beginning: The director of "Robot & Frank" is not able to make this material his own, belonging more to the original author than the adaptor. That's a bummer too, as Schreier continues to show a strong visual sense. David Lanzenberg's cinematography is energetic and active, often matching the youthful enthusiasm of the characters. Jacob Craycroft and Jennifer Lame's editing is similarly dynamic and animated. Following in the footsteps of Manic Pixie Dream Girl ur-text like "Garden State" and "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World," the film has a very hip soundtrack full of specifically chosen songs, determined to make the audience feel cool and wistful for their younger days. All of which is to say that a lot of elements of "Paper Towns" work. The problem resides on a scripting level, in an unwillingness to examine the tropes it employs, a lack of depth in the protagonists, and an unearned sense of value in the messages it supposedly contains. 

By the way, paper towns – also known as phantom settlements – are an actual real world concept and Agloe is a genuine example of this interesting bit of trivia. The film explains them as copyright traps map makers would include, to catch anybody pirating their work. Many exist totally by mistake though. "Paper Towns" was not a blockbuster on the level of "The Fault in Our Stars" but was still a good sized hit. It also seems to have been mostly well received among fans of the book. In the world of page-to-screen Y.A. treatment, I suppose sentimental quirk-fests like this are preferable to wimpy supernatural romances and paint-by-numbers fantasy adventures. "Paper Towns" could have been better but fails to rise above its formulas and gets too high on its own supply for my taste. Once again, I must conclude that this stuff simply isn't for me. [Grade: C+]

Director Report Card: Jake Schreier (2012)

Nobody likes to admit it but success in the entertainment industry does, indeed, seem to be about who you know more often than not. Take, for one example, the career of Jake Schreier. Schreier went to high school with Francis Starlite, the founder and namesake of indie electronic band Francis and the Lights. Schreier played keyboards in the band sometimes too, before directing a few music videos for the group. Starlite would end up collaborating with names like Frank Ocean, Chance the Rapper, and Kanye West. Otherwise known as some of the most successful and critically acclaimed musical artists of the last decade. That led to him directing music videos for those high-profile performers, probably leading to him making some extremely buzz-worthy commercials too. Schreier is also a co-founder of Waverly Films, a little filmmaking collective that included Jon Watts, among others. Watts has been extremely lucky himself, making the leap from micro-budget flicks to “Spider-Man” movies. I imagine being tight with Watts was a factor in how Jake got a job directing a big budget Marvel superhero flick, the most high-profile project of his career so far. Since I was going to review that one anyway, I figured I might as well look at Schreier's earlier features and give myself some added context. 

1. Robot and Frank

In 2000, the car company Honda unveiled a four foot tall robot named ASIMO, an obvious backcronym that supposedly stood for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. The smoothly designed, humanoid-shaped, bipedal automaton would quickly become well known for its ability to walk without any additional assistance from humans. (Assuming you don't count a digital map of the area being downloaded prior to the walk as “additional.”) ASIMO could walk up stairs, shake hands, turn door knobs, navigate obstacles, turn its head to listen to someone, and awkwardly dance. Humble as those accomplishments may seem, they were major technological advances at the time. Honda heavily promoted ASIMO too, the robot's visage – which brought an astronaut, a LEGO mini-fig, and an iPod to mind – becoming a common sight in commercials and various public spaces. ASIMO was a hit, people even loving the machine when it fell over. Though officially retired since 2022, ASIMO continues to cast a large shadow over the world of robotics and pop culture. 

For example: Around 2002, while both were attending the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Jake Schreier and Christopher D. Ford would collaborate on a screenplay and short film about a robot that happened to look a lot like ASIMO. It was Ford's thesis project and we don't know what grade he got on it. However, after Schreier became established as an in-demand director of commercials, we do know that the two would revisit the idea. It would evolve into “Robot & Frank,” Schreier's feature debut. Released in 2012, the film would win a decent amount of critical buzz. Through it all, the titular android's design would change little, the resemblance to ASIMO lasting into the final product. It turns out an equally cute and suitably futuristic robot can take a movie way further than simply across a room or up some stairs. 

Many years ago, Frank Weld was a cat burglar of some renown. An expert lock picker and safe cracker, Frank would become notorious for his high-paying jobs. The authorities caught up with him eventually though, Weld spending several years in jail. Now he's an old man, left by his wife and kids in a rural home, his memory and awareness of his surroundings starting to slip. Despite the changes in his life, Frank still feels the desire to pull off another big score. His son James, no longer able to check on him every day, buys Frank a live-in robot assistant to monitor his health and keep him out of trouble. Frank greatly resents Robot's presence at first before realizing the machine's built-in moral standards have nothing to say about stealing. The two snatch a rare book from a local library without getting caught. Revitalized, Frank next plots to rob the rich donners of the library. However, the police are starting to catch wind of his actions... More pressingly, Frank's own mind is starting to betray him, he is feeling more pressure from his kid and – most upsetting of all – he's growing attached to the picky, micro-managing machine that is now his partner in crime. 

There is, perhaps, no cinematic formula more versatile and reliably entertaining than a pair of mismatched misfits starting out antagonistic towards one another before slowly warming up to each other, learning to see the others' good attributes, and being best friends by the end. Whether they are a by-the-book veteran and a wild card renegade cop or an obsessive compulsive neat freak and a slacker, it's a narrative that has been making audiences chuckle roughly since human performances began. “Robot & Frank” does not resist these clichés in anyway. Frank is a crotchety old man, more than a bit of a smart-ass, and extremely set-in-his-ways. Robot is, well, a robot. He always speaks calmly, always moves slowly and considerately, and plans out everything he does with a specific goal in mind. Yet the two are more alike than they initially appear, Robot slowly showing a sly side of his own as Frank learns to appreciate the organization the machine brings into his life. By the end, the movie had successfully gotten me in invested in these two's relationship and had me nodding along or getting weepy eyed at all the right times. Sometimes, clichés aren't a bad thing, especially when they work in service of invoking a particular feeling in the viewer.

“Robot & Frank” tugs extra hard at the heart strings because the human half of its titular duo is an old man starting to lose his mind. Like most people in this situation, Frank doesn't want to acknowledge that there's something wrong. He insists that everything is normal, that his memory is fine, and his perception of reality has never been better. His kids and friends notice the truth, that his sense of time and place slips back and forth without warning, that he lives half-way in the present and half in his scattered memories of the past. For Frank, this is more than merely a loss of his ability to function and remember where he is. It's a loss of identity. He can't do the things he used to, the activities he wants to do. He's desperately holding onto the remains of a life that is slipping away, sometimes more aware than others that there's no going back now. He's long pass the point of no return and his brain is only going to get foggier from here. It's a very human tragedy, that we've seen play out many in reality many times before, and “Robot & Frank” approaches it in a touching, not overly sentimental way. 

For some of us, this hits a lot closer than others. Let me get a little personal here, guys. My mom had COVID in December of 2021. We are still only learning the long-term physiological effects that disease has on the brain but I can tell you that it can seriously effects the cognitive abilities of someone in their sixties. In the years since, I have seen my mom's memory slowly start to slip. She is much more repetitive now than she use to be, much more fixated on past events, and far less likely to remember a conversation we had five minutes earlier. Right now, she can still do ninety-percent of the things she's always done but it's all a grave omen of what is to come. Watching someone you love, the person who has been there your whole life, start to slip ever so slowly into senility is extremely difficult. It's also truly frustrating. Because I love my mom but she's stubborn and refuses to face what is blatantly obvious to everyone else. I want to do what's best for her but, at the same time, find my tolerance for her inability to recognize change difficult to handle at times. 

I bring this up because it's a feeling that “Robot & Frank” captures extremely well. Frank lives on his own and insists everything is fine, despite him constantly talking about going to a restaurant that has been closed for years and sometimes thinking his adult son is still in college. He pushes back on every suggestion they make. How do you help somebody who refuses to take your advice? This is best displayed when Frank's daughter attempt to live with him, struggling with the daily temper tantrums and refusals to get along. Such as grumpy spells about dinner or potato chips. It's all so real that I can only assume that screenwriter Christopher Ford went through some very similar events in real life. There's a delicate balance, of caring for someone you love deeply, respecting their boundaries, not getting frustrated with their mood swings, and not becoming overwhelmed with sadness at what you're seeing.

“Robot & Frank” suggests the best way to handle this transformation is absolute patience. Peter Sarsgaard voices Robot with a suitably zen like cadence, always calm and receptive. At the same time, the machine's nearly monotone vocal patterns can disguise a surprising sarcasm or even a manipulative side. He subtly guilts Frank into going along with his new schedule, making him feel bad about possibly causing the robot's purpose to go to waste. He pushes the old man out of the house and helps him, with a quiet and almost unintentional sense of humor. The natural dryness of the robotic delivery, his perpetually soft tone creating a dryness and almost condescending effect that is great for comedy. This is best displayed when Robot has to make idle chitchat with an even less advanced model of machine or his dead-pan reaction to the obviously illegal things Frank suggests. Sarsgaard is so good in the part that you might honestly be tricked into thinking Robot is played by a text-to-voice program like Siri, while also bringing a surprising amount of humanity to this distinctly inhuman co-lead. 

As much as “Robot & Frank” plays the inhuman half of its duo for soft laughs, the film is also not subtle about what the machine represents to Frank. The droid may use its non-threatening appearance and quietly sardonic voice to endear itself to the man. At the same time, Robot never hides what he actually is. He's a machine, with no soul or purpose beyond what he's been programmed to do. As the criminal subplot of “Robot & Frank” moves to the forefront, it's repeatedly brought up that Robot's digital memory could be used as evidence against Frank. That deleting his database absolutely is what needs to be done to protect the old man. This is clearly an obvious metaphor for Frank's own ailing memory and refusal to admit that he's in the early stages of dementia. The emotional climax of “Robot & Frank” is the man accepting that his life is going to change, that the person he was is slipping away forever, but that he is still worthy of love. The moment comes in the form of an embrace. It's better done than it sounds and I'm not going to lie when I say it got me a little misty-eyed. “Robot & Frank” manages to weave this metaphorical device into its narrative in a way that is natural and touching. 

Despite how heavy its topics can get and how whimsically light-hearted it sense of humor can be, "Robot & Frank" is neither an overly sentimental sap-fest nor a depressing slog. In fact, the movie is surprisingly suspenseful at times. When Frank gets back into the robbery business, and Robot tags along with him, it leads to a nicely tense and drawn out safe cracking sequence. In the second half, a suitably off-putting and patronizing Jeremy Strong emerges as the story's antagonist, the rich donor that lives near Frank's home. The script makes you wonder how aware Strong is of Frank's scheme to rob him. The same can be said of Jeremy Sisto, fantastically utilized in a small role as an enthusiastic police detective on the duo's trail. Because you are invested in Frank and Robot's journey, you care about if they can pull this off. Our hero being both an old man losing his memory and a wily schemer allows the script to pull off a nice balancing act, where Frank can be both a doddering old man people underestimate and also a tricky professional on his latest mission. Robot has a similar back-and-forth, the audience nicely kept in suspense over whether the machine's logical nature will help or hinder the heist.

It's funny that the flesh-and-blood title character would so happen to be played by a veteran star of stage and screen also named Frank. That's not the only thing that makes Frank Langella the ideal pick for this role. He has the age and gravitas necessary to pull off the part of an old man nearing the end of his life, with a world of regrets behind him and an uncertain future ahead. At the same time, Langella has always had a sneaky energy to him, a cocksure smile and mischievous glint in his eye that works great for an aging cat burglar. His chemistry with Robot is the heart and soul of the movie. Sarsgaard's vocals are sure and effecting while diminutive dancer Rachael Ma, inside the convincing suit, is properly stiff and mechanical while also suggesting an odd pathos with a slump of a robotic shoulder or a slight turn of the reflective, helmeted head. 

James Marsden appears as Frank's fed-up but understanding son utilizes the same avuncular sense of security and comedic exasperation that would be perfected in, of all things, the "Sonic the Hedgehog" movies. Liv Tyler appears as his crunchy daughter and I've always find Tyler to be a somewhat flat affected performer. This is true here as well, though that's suited to a slightly clueless but sweetly well intentioned character. Susan Sarandon is also adorable as the librarian Frank quietly romances throughout – a subplot that also suggests the push and pull between the old ways and dehumanizing tech – even if it leads to a last minute reveal that is a bit too obvious and maudlin for my taste. 

"Robot & Frank" is emotionally effective drama, cute comedy, a well organized crime caper but also surprisingly observant science fiction. All we know about the movie's setting is that it is the "near future." We see signs of a world that is changing, of technology a step or two removed from our own. In the decade since the film's release, the idea of long-distance video calls – that are often interrupted by bad weather and weird network hiccups – has already gone from sci-fi tech to everyday inconvenience. We see Frank's daily walks interrupted by weird little electric cars, something else that is becoming more common. The robots are, obviously, the most far out element. That they have such a commercial, smooth design and soothing, slightly patronizing voice already suggests the iPhone aesthetic that has taken over. Robot is more sophisticated than any Roomba that exists now but still feels well within the realm of possibility. The movie smartly creates a future world that seems very close to our own, subtly hinting at how technology has changed our everyday lives without losing sight of its emotional, human heart. Such as in the nodded-at-detail that robot workers are often protested against, for taking work away from flesh and blood people and seeming to diminish our overall humanity. Which also reflects the debate over AI tech that the globe is currently embroiled in. It goes to show that good sci-fi, like always, is usually nothing more than a smart exaggeration of the world that we are already living in.

A during-the-credits montage of real world robot footage, including a lot of the Japanese "soft" robot tech that is most indicative of the film's setting, further connects to this idea. As cute as that is, my favorite element of the ending is how nothing but a look from Langella suggests that the person Frank was will continue to survive, even if his body and mind is starting to fail him. Perhaps that is the central thesis of "Robot & Frank." That the indelible parts of our souls that make us human will always manage to find a way to co-exist alongside growing technology. Perhaps that tech, seemingly inhuman looking at first, can even aid it. The result is a film that made me chuckle, touched my heart, and also hints at bigger themes and ideas. It's a really good first film for Schreier, not ground breaking but an often charming and extremely well made feature. [Grade: A-]