I’m Your Man

Directed by Maria Schrader, I’m Your Man follows Maren Eggert’s Alma Felser as she reluctantly agrees to spend time with a humanoid cyborg named Tom (Dan Stevens) to determine its effectiveness as a romantic partner. It’s an unusual premise that is, for the most part, executed to reasonably watchable effect by Schrader, as the filmmaker, armed with a script written with Jan Schomburg, delivers an often excessively deliberate drama that benefits from its proliferation of compelling sequences and stellar lead performances – with, in terms of the latter, both Eggert and Stevens turning in solid work that’s heightened by their palpable chemistry together. There’s little doubt, then, that I’m Your Man‘s inability to wholeheartedly grab the viewer is due mostly to its lackadaisical pace and overlong running time, which subsequently ensures that certain revelations and occurrences within the picture’s second half are unable to pack the emotional punch that Schrader has presumably intended. The end result is a hit-and-miss spin on a familiar genre that generally feels as though it should be better, although, having said that, it does remain impossible to downplay the effectiveness of Eggert and Stevens’ efforts here.

**1/2 out of ****