**This post contains MINOR spoilers**
The Story- Abi (Georgina Campbell), a highly skilled prosthetics engineer, prepares for a fresh start with her husband, Paul (Mark Rowley). A new job at Integrate Robotics, a fully equipped smart home, and a cheery neighbor named Rose (Amara Karan)? Abi is also willing to forgive Paul for cheating on her, so everything should be perfect, right?
Abi’s new life takes a strange turn, when T.I.M. (Eamon Farren) arrives at her home. A loyal and efficient robot, T.I.M. (Technologically Integrated Manservant) was supposed to be a simple project from her boss, Dewson (Nathaniel Parker). But T.I.M. slowly develops feelings for Abi, sparking a deadly rift between himself, Paul, and Abi.
My Thoughts- He cooks, he cleans, and he’s completely nuts? Eamon Farren delivers an excellent performance as Tim, the seemingly helpful and obedient robot with a dark side. Farren absolutely nails the polite mannerisms of a programmed servant. Not too robotic to the point, where T.I.M. sounds clunky and stiff, just enough believable human qualities to convince you he’s passable as a real person.
One good scene to go back to involves T.I.M. being enamored with an old black and white movie. You start to see how T.I.M. develops emotions and human feelings, because he’s fascinated with the “tragic inevitability” and the “beauty of love” in the movie. A big warning sign for what happens towards the end.
As the story progresses, you see the darker and more sinister side of Tim, as his obsession with Abi spirals out of control. Farren smoothly switches gears to being a cold and calculating miscreant, a machine deluded into believing he’s doing the right thing to protect his mistress.
Rose and Dewson are two important characters, and their perspectives really paint a clearer picture for what the movie should’ve been all about. Dewson is all for technological advancements and artificial intelligence taking over. He believes human beings are too “messy,” preferring loyal, obedient, and mindless robots. He’s a rich businessman, a jerk, and Dewson has a strange obsession with beating the Chinese.
Rose? Her actions speak louder than her words, no big speeches or angry rants about technology. Rose lives in a cottage, not a smart home. She loves gardening, and she prefers to use landlines over cellphones. Dewson is far more cynical, but Rose finds happiness living a simple life, without relying on a T.I.M. to get all of her chores done, appointments booked, and she doesn’t use gadgets or devices.
T.I.M. is loaded with material for a potentially good sci-fi/thriller. Abi’s line about not wanting to put things out into the world that aren’t ready helps signal the fact that there’s trouble coming soon, and there’s some realism behind her words. The dangers of trusting artificial intelligence, deepfake videos, relying on machines, robots, and leaping too far into the future to change the old ways of the world and everyday life. And Paul expresses concerns about giving a robot access to his personal emails. Yes, it’s cliched, but the material is still right there, and it’s hard to ignore.
But T.I.M. weirdly focuses on the romance drama between Abi and Paul too much to the point, where it basically strangles the story. The going back and forth with Abi’s paranoia about Paul possibly cheating on her with Rose, and Abi constantly having second thoughts about giving Paul a second chance.
Of course, things escalate, when Abi’s paranoia causes her to become more attached to Tim, pushing Paul to the side. It gets to a point, where it’s easy to feel some sympathy for Paul. He’s unemployed, his wife questions everything he does, and a robot is ruining his marriage.
Paul and Abi are also trying to have a baby, but of course Abi has her doubts, because she’s still not sure, if Paul is worth trusting. I understand the psychology behind T.I.M. weaponizing Abi’s paranoid thoughts to cut Paul out of the picture, but if they wanted to purely make a romance drama, they should’ve scrapped all of the sci-fi elements.
The moment T.I.M. steps out of his container at Abi’s house, you just know something bad is going to happen. Robot learns what it feels like to be human, robot goes on a rampage, when he can’t control his emotions, lots of violence follows after T.I.M. figures out his own solutions to fix Abi’s problems. That’s fine. You should know what to expect from a movie about a killer robot.
The problem is, there’s no subtlety for the foreshadowing. T.I.M. using the deepfake video to deceive Abi is a swerve that just doesn’t work, because it’s too obvious, and it’s hard to believe that Paul could be that stupid. T.I.M. is very predictable, slogging through each scene, and it’s easy to see what’s going to happen step by step, when T.I.M. realizes he needs to save Abi.
Georgina Campbell plays a believably sympathetic character, who’s easy to root for, and T.I.M. features a solid supporting cast. The big finale is a strange mix of tense and borderline silly moments, but T.I.M. is still a decent sci-fi/thriller. There’s just enough entertainment in the “good robot turns bad, and attacks the humans” department, but it’s impossible to overlook the wasted potential for a gold mine’s worth of material.
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