Watch: Robot and Frank

Robot: The truth is I don’t care if my memory is erased or not.
Frank: But how can you not care about something like that?
Robot: Think about it this way: you know that you are alive. You think therefore you are…In a similar way I know that I am not alive. I am a robot.

Robots will be ruling our future, we will depend on them for attention and love.

In this lovely and endearingly lighthearted movie, Frank, an ex convicted thief suffers from dementia and refuses help from a robot given by his super busy son.  But that is only until he realizes how the robot can help him arrange a heist on the local library where his crush works for.

And before you go "ewww" about these old people having a lovelife, let me tell you that the real important relationship worth mentioning here is between Frank and the robot (hence the title). Plus there's a surprising twist at the end that would make you go "awwww".

On a more existential note, this movie plays around the struggles of having dementia, of being old and alone and of a robot dependent future that is within our horizon.

It is said that memory is the key to personal identity. It is who makes us what we are. Everyday, the continuing process of experiencing things and relying on our memory is essential in making sense of our everyday existence. And to never have that, or even just to lose part of it, is a sort of death in itself.

This movie will make you experience and appreciate that loss and struggle. It will teach you to treasure life, as you have it now and the people that you share it with.  Because life is not just about the memories we remember but the everyday emotional connections that we make.  And that makes this movie a jewel.

But somehow, watching this also makes me fear a future filled with robots.

As a way to promote this movie, a tumblr account called Robot and Frank was made which gives us a glimpse of the not so distant future.  Here are just some of the examples:

If these doesn't terrify you, I don't know what will.