Fantasy ‘Man’
Director Maria Schrader takes a few welcome detours on her way down the perfect man rabbit hole. Also? No Leonard Cohen. No Wham!
I’m Your Man
Director: Maria Schrader • Writers: Maria Schrader, Jan Schomburg, based on a short story by Emma Braslavsky
Starring: Maren Eggert, Dan Stevens, Sandra Hüller, Hans Löw, Falilou Seck, Wolfgang Hübsch, Inga Busch, Henriette Richter-Röhl
Germany • 1hrs 42mins
Opens Hong Kong July 28 • IIB
Grade: B+
Fairly early on in Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man (Ich bin dein Mensch), Tom (Dan Stevens), the robot created to appeal to Alma’s (Maren Eggert) every whim and appease her every desire decks out her bathroom – in a few seconds – with rose petals, Champagne and a bubble bath. She looks incredibly unimpressed, even when Tom quotes statistics saying 95% of German women dream of this kind of behaviour from their partners. Alma’s a tough sell.
Obviously I’m Your Man mines robots-to-serve-us lore that has been around since Isaac Asimov wrote the robot rules we live by to this day in 1950, and taken to its expected dirty extremes in Weird Science, Making Mr Right and with Mr Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was programmed “in multiple techniques” don’t forget. Let’s face it, Bride of Frankenstein has its influence when you consider the whole building-the-perfect-mate thing. But Schrader has taken the familiar formula and juiced it with some delicate humour and a low-key examination of our uneasy relationship with technology, never mind each other. That said, this isn’t about the singularity that’s going to plunge us into a Cyberdyne waking nightmare. I’m Your Man is, essentially, a rom-dramedy about finding connection where you least expect it, shaded with regret, loss, and fear of never finding fulfilment. Though having an unflappable, agreeable, hunky robot that looks like Dan Stevens is a good place to start?
Is this where the ‘Stevens’ comes from?
Alma is an archaeologist working at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, who reluctantly agrees to be part of a three-week trial to help determine what, if any, rights robots should be afforded. After an initial meeting at a lab/nightclub with a Mitarbeiterin (Sandra Hüller, so brilliant in Toni Erdmann), her ideally constructed partner Tom comes home with her. Alma is not looking for a partner. She doesn’t need companionship. She’s busy at work. She tolerates Tom’s presence as a potentially lucrative favour to her boss Roger (Falilou Seck). She’s got bigger fish to fry, chiefly wrapping up a three-year research project, an increasingly unmanageable father (Wolfgang Hübsch) suffering dementia, and simmering disquiet regarding ex Julian (Hans Löw), now set up with a new girlfriend, Steffi (Henriette Richter-Röhl). So Alma resists Tom’s attempts to be the perfect partner, down to the accent Alma’s dataset indicates she likes: “foreign without being exotic.” It goes without saying Alma’s considerable barriers slowly come down the more Tom refines his algorithm.
I’m Your Man is deceptively simple in form – however impeccably production designed – and despite the presence of robots Schrader jettisons the ultra-futuristic vibe the film could have run with (looking at you, Her). That’s neither good nor bad. It just refocuses the story on the interplay between Alma and Tom, flawlessly realised by Eggert and Stevens. Eggert makes Alma entirely relatable, especially to those among us that choose to be unpartnered and spend their days listening to how they “don’t get it” because they don’t have kids (let’s not start in on the nonsense the child-free deal with). Or they “don’t know what I mean” because they don’t have a dumb-ass boyfriend underfoot. Eggert sends Alma on an emotional ride as she tries to humiliate her ’bot, provoke him, defend him, and ultimately reconcile her feelings for him. And Stevens matches her note for note, as charming as he’s supposed to be and unflagging in his mandate to win Alma over (oh god, waiting at the café). Stevens extends that to the audience, calibrating his calibrations from one scene to the next. Eggert’s turn is unsurprising but Stevens continues to be a revelation, and seems to have shed his futzy, pretty boy Downton Abbey image. Welcome to the Twilight Club Mr Stevens. Membership: 2 (with Robert Pattinson).
Oh yeah, they’re in this too
This is a fairly straightforward outing for Schrader, whose past work has pivoted on (usually) women, going their own ways – defying religious doctrine and arranged marriage in Unorthodox, exploring sexual limits in Love Life, chronicling the work that went into The New York Times story that rocked Hollywood in the forthcoming She Said – and damning the torpedoes. But scratch the surface and it becomes clear how much she and co-writer Jan Schomburg have tinkered with the format, swapping out rom-com expectations for something more philosophical and questioning (Do you really want your fantasies to come true?). Once again a lot of that works because of Eggert’s ability to keep Alma resonant, even if you want to smack her sometimes. I’m Your Man also dares to end on an unconventionally ambiguous note, leaving Alma and Tom’s fate up in the air, if they ever had one at all. Well. If she doesn’t want him I guess I could put him to good use. — DEK