I’m Your Man Review: A Sci-Fi Romance About Dating AI Instead Of Fighting Them

Artificial intelligences (robots, cyborgs, humanoids, all that jazz) are often divided into two factions in science fiction. Either they are the overlords of humanity or they are our servants, and any friction that exists between us and them is due to discrepancies in those levels of authority. Imagining an entity designed as an equality, full stop, is more complicated, but the German sci-fi romance I’m your man handle the idea very carefully.

In this fast-paced and unexpectedly funny film, German director and co-writer Maria Schrader considers the appeal of romance, the demands of partnership, and the ethical question of what we owe to creatures specifically created to meet our needs. (I’m your man would do a nice double show with Christian Petzold Undine, where Schader’s fellow German filmmaker investigates the same three ideas from a fantasy perspective, rather than a science fiction one). Is our happiness so important that it should be someone else’s sole motivator? Can a human-made robot have the same amount of free will as a human? If everything about AI reflects human qualities, does that mean that our mistakes, or our selfishness or our cruelties, are our legacy?

The script, co-written by Schrader and Jan Schomberg, addresses these questions naturally and with a pleasantly humorous pace, through conversations between university professor and language researcher Alma (Maren Eggert) and humanoid robot Tom (Dan Stevens). with whom you agree. live with for three months. Alma has no interest in love or companionship, but is forced into the study when the university dean Roger (Falilou Seck) promises her additional research funding if she reports on her experiences with Tom.

The question is whether humanoids should be granted human rights, such as the ability to work, marry, or travel. Alma and the other nine study participants agree to investigate whether AIs like Tom are “human enough” to gain basic dignities and freedoms. Tom comes across as the perfect man for her, fitting all her specifications, desires, and demands. Normally, Alma spends her time as an observer, people-watching while drinking alone at the neighborhood bar, observing students at the university, or people-watching on the streets below her upper-level balcony. Eggert’s minimal changes in facial expression capture her variety of reactions to her own voyeurism, and those subtleties reflect a woman who is so used to solitude that she mistakes it for virtue.

In theory, Tom is a perfect fit for what Alma wants. He is so handsome that one of the graduate students who works with Alma practically faints when he walks into his lab. He’s polite, keeps the doors open, tips the service staff, and serves coffee to one of Alma’s ex-boyfriends who shows up unexpectedly at her apartment. But Alma is distant, closed, and even tough in her constant comments about Tom’s artificiality. During their first meeting (a clever scene that plays out like a bad date before revealing Tom’s status), Alma seems disgusted when an operating system bug causes Tom to repeat himself over and over again. At home, she scoffs at his algorithm, and when he’s confused by her disinterest in him, she says, “He’s human.” Are they going to sleep in the same bed, as the show intended? Absolutely not.

Eggert and Stevens have a contrasting pleasant energy, with their unimpressed expressions, deadpan spikes, and aloof body language that sparkles against their pleasantly soft smile and more fluid physicality. Their interactions often involve Alma aggressively demanding responses, while Tom is gently accommodating. (“So what’s the matter with your dick?”) That tug of war becomes so established that it’s a refreshing change of pace as Tom begins to question what Alma really wants.

And while Stevens remembers Michael Fassbender’s David with his precise and efficient movements, Tom is cunningly humorous and meaningfully self-aware, rather than oozing threat. Stevens’ proud expression of “I brush my teeth and clean my body” when Alma asks about her body bath requirements is the oddly charming kind of moment where I’m your man excels.

But the movie isn’t all foe-to-lover shenanigans and romance, and its other whiny subplots add welcome weight. Alma’s research on how early written language used poetry and metaphor to divide administrative texts reflects the film’s larger philosophical considerations on the need for joy and spontaneity in everyday life. Her interactions with her aging father and the ex-boyfriend who quickly moved on after their breakup also add context that supports the film’s central thesis, about how the roles we play in other people’s lives challenge us to look beyond ourselves. themselves.

I’m your man uses Alma to argue that even if we think we are alone, our interconnectedness is part of the social contract of living in a society and a shared responsibility to do everything possible to improve it. “It’s a machine. He can’t feel anything, ”Alma insists about Tom, and I’m your man thankfully she doesn’t go the expected route of saying she’s the truly unaffected one. Instead of, I’m your man It offers a perspective on humanity that is equally whimsical and brooding, and its intimacy is a welcome change of pace in science fiction, a genre that too often confuses violence and colonialism as the sole engines of drama.

I’m your man It opens in limited theaters on September 24, 2021 and opens on digital rental services on October 12.