Movie review: ‘Robot and Frank' is programmed to steal your heart
Funny how some of the warmest heartbreakers in the science-fiction genre involve relationships between humans and machines.
There was Ray Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” a short story and classic “Twilight Zone” episode about a wise and kindly automaton grandmother (Josephine Hutchinson) who
becomes a beloved member of a motherless family; Richard Matheson’s “Steel,” also a short story and “Twilight Zone” teleplay about a failed boxer (Lee Marvin) who invests all his
battered hope in a robot heavyweight that’s obsolete and breaking down; and Steven Spielberg’s “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” a 2001 film based on a Brian Aldiss short story about a little android “boy” (Haley Joel Osment) programmed with the ability to love.
“Robot & Frank” follows that well-used man-machine relationship plot gimmick, too, but with fresher, less sentimental and subversively funnier twists, while still managing to be heartwarmingly human, too.
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