“I’m Your Man” once again questions whether humans and artificial intelligence can build a relationship together with a rom-com twist and two charming lead performances; however, it doesn’t go onto deeper territory or explore a more absorbing or weighty path.
Scientist Alma Felser (Maren Eggert) is a lonely woman who one day gets the chance to get the perfect partner created for her. She is skeptical of the idea of having a partner, hence one that is “manufactured” to her liking. She gets offered a job to evaluate a new line of cyborgs and see if they should be granted into the real world. At first, Alma doesn’t want to do it; however, when her research for her cuneiform studies at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum hangs, she agrees to a three-week test run with Tom (Dan Stevens), the robot that has the purpose of bringing her happiness.
If you like romantic comedies, you might as well like this one. It has some sci-fi samples here and there because it revolves around a woman and a robot being partnered up, but it is a romantic comedy at its core. Thus, it has all the tropes, quirks, and similar narratives that are involved in the subgenre, for better or worse. It is predictable where the movie is going from the beginning; the girl doesn’t like the guy, and as time passes by, their relationship sprouts.
Obviously, the ending is like you would imagine, but it’s still somewhat firm. It has its strength due to how charming and warm the characters and their interactions are. Allure can only move a film so far; it doesn’t have that anchorage that you can depend entirely on it. In some way, that is the problem with the film. It doesn’t have that much of a unique story to separate itself from the tropes. With all those remarks and non-astonishments, it can’t get onto the level of other romantic comedies of recent memory.
You would think it would change with its sci-fi elements, yet it disappoints in that department as well. The male lead of this story is an artificial intelligence cyborg, which was modeled to Alma’s tastes, and Dan Stevens does fit the role perfectly. The voice, jitters, mannerisms, and attitude blend perfectly to interpret a robot with excellence; the ticks that shamble onto his character are smoothly structured. This combination of sci-fi and romance has been done before, yet it isn’t something that it’s constantly being made due to it needing to find an engrossing anchor.
Dan Stevens and Maren Eggert in “I’m Your Man.” Photo courtesy Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)
The main reason “I’m Your Man” doesn’t connect all of the dots is because its sci-fi backbone isn’t that captivating or thought-provoking. Other works like “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” (2004), “Ex-Machina” (2014), and “Her” (2013) dwell in their romance essences, nonetheless, with a really poignant, innovative, and amusing idea in its core. This starts interesting in its first act but continues the other two submerging in tropes and swamped by cliché moments. It also conjures some of the bromides from the “Stepford Wives”-esque narrative and doesn’t deliver much insight into deeper territory.
There are moments of realization coming from both parts, except we expect these moments to arrive. As I mentioned before, it ends in its beginning since we already know what will happen. You want the movie to prove you wrong by the end of it; you want that spark of a movie switching directions and surprising you, the viewer. Nevertheless, that doesn’t happen. Its story is too narrow and straightforward. It doesn’t go straight to the heart of the periphery because its fundamentals are its cheeky tropes. Still and all, the performances and chemistry carry this picture ultimately.
As Dan Stevens does a good performance interpreting a modeled A.I., Maren Eggert does the deed of putting all the emotional weight in her back and going through the script’s punches. She is doing a good enough job to make her way until the end, while the audience cares for her. At least in that regard, it is effective. Seeing the charismatic “obligated” couple being together and trying to “work” things out is one of the film’s best scenes. The rest of the film lacks the heft of its initial ideas. You spend each minute of “I’m Your Man” asking yourself if it will be just another rom-com or something fresh within relationships and technology. Unfortunately, it is the former.
This review of “I’m Your Man” is written from its screening at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
