I’m Your Man
Too good to be true
When Fritz Lang released “Metropolis” (GER, 1927), he never could imagine that his film, in addition to becoming a landmark of science fiction, would also usher in a long list of movies about man & robot relationships. In this same theme the award-winning German director Maria Schrader brings us the movie “I’m Your Man” (“Ich bin dein Mensch”, GER, 2021).
Imagine a partner not only beautiful and elegant, but also cultured, intelligent and who is always looking for the best way to please the other. This is Tom (Dan Stevens) the partner with whom researcher Alma (Maren Eggert) is expected to live for three weeks. The only problem is that Tom is an android, a humanoid robot.
Alma is a middle-aged woman who left a relationship some time ago. She is passionately dedicated to her research and in order to maintain funding for it, she agrees to participate in an experiment. Alma must live for three weeks with a robot specially prepared for her. This experience will be important to support the discussion on the human rights of robots.
The early days are strange, for Tom’s perfection bumps into Alma’s perception that her individuality is being invaded. At the same time, Alma discovers entirely new facets in his new flat mate.
Some curious situations happen when Alma visits her father, who suffers from senile dementia, and also when she goes to her ex’s open house party and discovers that his new wife is pregnant. This is a delicate point for Alma, for she herself had suffered a miscarriage.
Gradually, Alma discovers new things also in other “couples”, much better adapted and who are fully satisfied with the situation. Alma, however, thinks that the imperfections of the humans are important, which takes her relationship with Tom to another level.
The cast is small but perfect. Dan Stevens, the film’s only English actor, well known for his participation in the series Downton Abbey, makes the perfect characterization of the robot Tom. Maren Eggert, who plays Alma, although attractive, does not fit the beauty standard style “toothpaste advertisement” so common in Hollywood. This makes her character much more credible.
“I’m Your Man” won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Festival, as well as several other awards and nominations. The film was chosen to represent Germany in the Category Best International Film at the 2022 Academy Awards.
The inspiration to this film came from a short story of German author Emma Braslavsky, although there are other literary sources on the subject. The great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov has several short stories and books that use the theme, but what best suits this film is “Satisfaction Guaranteed”, from the compilation “The Rest of the Robots”, published in 1964. In it, a humanoide robot is given to the wife of an executive as an experiment. In the story is raised the doubt whether the robot could fall in love with the human, when in fact the opposite is what happened.
This is also Alma’s conclusion in “I’m Your Man”. After all, a companion of this type only has qualities, is able to learn all the tastes of the human and has no defect! As the character says, it would be very easy for the human to fall in love with such a machine, but that would only damage his relationship with other humans.
Although it is fiction in the broadest sense, the situation described in “I’m Your Man” is not as far from reality as one might imagine. At this very moment in which we live, many artificial intelligences are in contact with us, even if we are not aware of it.
The worst is that, unlike the friendly Tom, the artificial intelligences behind the social networks we use use our tastes and preferences not to make us happy, but to stir up rivalries and antagonisms, generating profits from network traffic and paid advertising.
“I’m Your Man” is a very interesting film that runs away from the common place of Hollywood productions and leads us to think a little more about the virtual environment in which we are immersed – and with great influence on our real actions.