When looking for material for his directorial feature debut, Jake Schreier recalled a short film he had produced at New York University. Called Robot & Frank, it was a brief, offbeat heist flick grafted onto a tale of dementia and a caregiver automaton.
The short had been the thesis project of his longtime friend and budding screenwriter Christopher Ford. “It was something I’d always thought could be great on a large scale,” says Schreier, who had been readying himself by making commercials for the past eight years.
Robot & Frank, which opens in area theaters this Friday, opened the 2012 Palm Beach International Film Festival earlier this year. Prior to that, it was featured at Sundance, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize.
For the role of Frank, the increasingly forgetful, aging former jewel thief, Schreier was able to attract Frank Langella, who signed on to the low-budget independent film after meeting with the fledgling director and writer.
“I think he just wanted to see what our angle was, what we were trying to do with it,” says Schreier. “He wanted to be sure that we took it seriously, that it wasn’t going to be silly.”
In fact, the film does sound ― in title and synopsis ― like a sitcom. You see, Frank’s overprotective son buys him a newfangled nursemaid robot, to which he takes an instant dislike. But then it dawns on Frank that the machine could be an accomplice, allowing him to return to his career as a robber.
Yet the film also has things on its mind. “To some degree the movie is about when you get older and you’re almost not taken seriously anymore. You become almost treated like a child again,” notes Schreier. “The irony is that this robot treats him in a more human way, maybe, than his kids do.”
Once Langella committed to the project, it was relatively easy to sign the rest of the impressive cast. “I think for sure having him onboard gave it an imprimatur, that the project was worth taking seriously,” says Schreier. “And actors just love Frank, he’s so respected.”
Oscar winner Susan Sarandon plays the local librarian, Peter Sarsgaard voices the robot and James Marsden and Liv Tyler are Frank’s son and daughter.
With a cast like that, Schreier had to prove himself from the start. “Any director has to convince the actors that he knows what he’s doing. And directing in general requires a certain willful ignorance of your own faults.”
“The first day was Susan and Frank together, so I had a front row seat to two of the greatest actors around. It’s hard not to be awestruck.”
As to how he was able to acquire such a cast, Schreier says, “It was a short, 20-day shoot. We weren’t taking too much of anyone’s time. You’re in and out, so they gave it a shot.”
The robot’s abilities are a bit of science fiction, but Ford and Schreier wanted it to be consistent with current advances in robotics. “We researched how they’ve been shown in films and we looked at what they are for real,” says the director. “I think Ford knows the science very well, but then I think he took a lot of liberties in order to make a functional movie.”
Schreier is especially proud of the feedback he has received from the scientific community. “I think scientists are happy to see a movie that takes the issue not only seriously, but agnostically. In the sense that it’s not, ‘Oh, my god, the robots are going to take over the world and kill us!’
“We’re trying to take a serious look at some of the issues that will arise,” he says. “Because there are robots on the market right now that are taking care of the elderly, that are being brought into nursing homes, in Japan and here. It’s a real thing that’s being developed. Whether it will look and talk like ours does, I don’t know.”
Asked why moviegoers should go see Robot & Frank, Schreier goes into pitchman mode. “It will make you laugh, it will make you cry. We’ve got heists, we’ve got robots. What more do you want in your indie cinema?”