On October 13, 2022, a movie by Maria Schroeder, winner of the Emmy for the series “The Rebel” – “Your Perfect Man” was released in cinemas. Although the name is somewhat reminiscent of soap operas, it is far from that. This is a unique award-winning film: Germany’s representative for the 2021 Oscars, it won the acting award at the Berlin Festival for actress Maren Eggert, four Lola awards – the German Oscars, for the best film, director, actress and screenplay, and won the hearts of the audience and film critics alike.
The film is a witty comedy drama about love, emotions and what makes a human being human. The story: The scientist Alma (Maren Eggert), agrees to participate in an unusual experiment to secure funding for her research. As part of the experiment, she is forced to live for three weeks alongside Tom (Dan Stevens, “Downton Mansion”) – a human robot whose artificial intelligence was designed to serve as the perfect partner, programmed according to her measurements and needs.
The film makes us think about the human fantasy – to have a partner exactly what we are looking for, to do what we want, to understand us even without words, and to always be there by our side. However, in practice, when all this is realized, we find that we do not feel as we expected to feel, and in fact something is missing. It turns out that getting used to someone too perfect is just as difficult as getting used to someone with flaws and differences.
Dan Stevens does a great job playing the role of the robotic man. His acting is so believable that we can really believe that he is a robot and not a human being. Something in his distant and frozen gaze seemed completely robotic. Although from his behavior, we believe that he is really there for her, there is a certain tension in the air and an expectation that something will go wrong with the machine and the idyll will be shattered.
The film begins in a way that does not betray its subject, when the viewers do not know the truth about what is happening before their eyes. They think it’s a normal date scene in a pub with dancing, and what a surprise when it turns out that everything we saw was fiction. The heroine of the film has a hard time with the strange situation at first, but she gets swept up in it, because as I mentioned at the beginning of my words, who wouldn’t want to live with the man of her dreams? But later she comes to her senses and says to herself: “Who am I actually working for”? I will not make a spoiler for the end of the film, but I will definitely recommend it as a fascinating, interesting and unusual film.
Director: Maria Schroeder, screenplay: Jan Schomburg and Maria Schroeder – inspired by a short story of the same name by Emma Breslavsky. Actors: Dan Stevens, Maren Eggert, Sandra Holler, Hans Lewe. Germany 2021, 102 minutes, German, Hebrew and English translation. From 13.10.22 at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and throughout the country. Distribution in Israel – Nachshon Films