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This is the premise of Maria Schrader's
romantic comedy 'I'm Your Man', which opened this year's online
Berlin Film Festival on Monday.
An exploration of the free will, compromise and friction that
true love needs, the film casts German stage star Maren Eggert
with 'Downton Abbey' star Dan Stevens as the robot she agrees to
spend three weeks with to fund her research.
Schrader, who last year became the first German director to win
an Emmy for the Netflix series 'Unorthodox', said she wanted to
explore "the paradoxes of human desire" in the film, one of 15
competing for a coveted Golden Bear this year.
Handsome, and engineered to meet the highly strung, deeply
intellectual Alma's every need, Tom starts out speaking with all
the charm of a satnav. But he learns rapidly, despite Alma's
resistance.
"Alma defends the principles of romantic love, independence and
so-called free will," Schrader wrote. "In her eyes, Tom is
nothing more than a machine to fulfill her needs; far from being
a true counterpart, she sees a hollow illusion."
Light-hearted and relentlessly entertaining, the film
inadvertently exposed the limitations of this year's
pandemic-compliant online-only format.
Lines which in other years would have had audiences of critics
and film-makers rolling in the aisles of the Festival's packed
cinemas were lucky to win a mild chuckle from viewers watching a
film streamed into their living rooms.
"It's bittersweet," Stevens told a post-streaming news
conference, reflecting on the experience of bringing a labor of
love to a virtual premier.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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