Rating :   67/100                                                                       89 Min       

An original story set in the near future that sees a concerned son buy a robot companion for his memory troubled ageing father, a father who had an infamous cat burglar career and ponders the possibilities of his adroit and loyal new friend. The character of the father is a little acerbic, but our sympathies still lie with him, and the robot is humanly likeable enough for their relationship to feel real. Interesting and at moments touching, although there is a subdued feel to the conclusion – it’s easy to dismiss it but it’s worthy of much more thought. Frank Langella plays the lead, with Peter Sarsgaard as the voice of the robot (though he does sound a little like Kevin Spacey, a la the computer in ‘Moon’), James Marsden and Liv Tyler are his siblings with Susan Sarandon in support. One feature of the plot sees the local library recycling all but the most precious of the books, once they’ve all been scanned as ebooks, a concept which may well come into reality in our modern digitised era. The film is also the first from two friends – writer Christopher D. Ford and director Jake Schreier.