the man of my dreams ★★★
FANTASY COMEDY (2022)
Directed by: Maria Schrader
Cast: Maren Eggert, Dan Stevens.

The idea we’ve seen in the past from cinematic science fiction it is realized here, perhaps in the most human version, by Maria Schrader, director of, among other things, Someone Spoke, as well as the television company Unorthodox. Alma (Maren Eggert), a lone antiquities researcher, faces funding problems for her science program. To solve them, she agrees to take part in a groundbreaking experiment by living for three weeks with Tom (Dan Stevens), a humanoid robot specifically designed to provide her with maximum happiness.

Unlike previous versions of the story (such as Spike Jonze’s “She” or Spielberg’s “AI”), which build a whole futuristic world around her, Schroeder and her co-authors simply place her in modern Berlin, as supercomplex robots who think and act as as if people are not far off.

However, it is this one, in the form of the charming Dan Stevens (“Downton Tower”), who finds peaks with a stubborn academic who no longer seems to believe not only in an affair with a humanoid, but in love in general, after traumatic past experiences. However, life with Tom, even if initially forced, will force her to rethink much of what she had previously taken for granted.

The humanoid finds common ground with a stubborn academic who doesn’t seem to believe in love anymore.

In an era where online dating between people is largely driven by artificial intelligence algorithms and ChatGPT provides the answer to every question, Schroeder’s film raises interesting questions about the relationship between man and machine, but not only. Using (thankfully) humor, the film successfully comments on modern reality itself through the prism of two very different characters: one Alma, who craves emotional contact and affection, even if she does not realize it, and the other Tom, who “learns” by interacting with people, exploring limits that even his ingenious software did not always foresee. And the final find of the main character has its own meaning, although she tries – the only one who does this – to somehow guide the viewer.