Happiness, loneliness and silliness come together in this startling emotional adventure developed by writer-performers David Earl and Chris Hayward from their 2017 short film of the same name, and directed by Jim Archer. The film is partly about an AI robot called Charles. But thankfully, unlike a lot of serious sci-fi, this film doesn’t demand that we wonder whether or not AI robots are capable of independent thought or if you can fall in love with them, etc, etc. Charles, a free-thinking robot, is burdened with many things, but an ontological crisis isn’t one of them.
Earl himself plays Brian, a nerdy middle-aged bloke living alone in a Welsh cottage that he has all too clearly inherited from his late parents. He talks directly to a figure behind the camera, with a strange, self-aware nervous giggle: Earl has worked with Ricky Gervais on TV a fair bit, and as a performer has perhaps acquired some David Brent mannerisms to go with the sentimental comedy.
