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-]