By Jorge Ignacio Castillo

Robot Dreams (Spain, 2023. Dir: Pablo Berger): Don’t be fooled by the clean, simple lines of the Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Feature. Robot Dreams is a poignant dramedy about companionship and how relationships can both tear you to pieces and build you up. It’s also an indictment of the culture of disposability, a main force behind the climate crisis that currently enfolds us.

At the center of this dialogue-free feature is Dog, a lonely Manhattan dweller longing for someone to share his life. As hot-blooded creatures continue to disappoint him, he opts for purchasing an artificial one. Robot is the perfect fit: pleasant, accommodating, and game for anything. The twosome has a grand time until a day at the beach separates them to no fault of their own. Will they find their way to each other?

Robot’s journey is often heartbreaking. Easy prey for users and the self-serving, Robot has little control over his situation, but faces every challenge with an open mind while fantasizing about a reunion with his friend. In turn, Dog tries to get Robot back, but one can’t help but think he could put a little more mustard on his efforts.

Despite the weighty issues the film deals with, Robot Dreams is a delight. So much so, it makes Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” feel fresh again. It’s a more emotional experience than most live action films out there. Four stars (out of five).

Robot Dreams is now playing in Toronto and Montreal.

Longing (Canada, 2024. Dir: Savi Gabizon): Richard Gere deserves a far better career than the one he currently has. Declared persona non grata in China (the actor has been consistently critical of the communist regime), no movie starring Gere has opened across the Pacific since his heyday as Julia Roberts’ romantic foil. Now Gere can only be found in indies (Norman), films unlikely to make any money in China (Nights in Rodanthe), and now Canadian-made dramas.

The former leading man does his darndest to save Longing, but there’s no way to rescue this unreservedly silly drama in which none of the leads have any common sense and the characters that do are treated as villains. Gere dusts his successful-businessman™ persona to play Daniel, a confirmed bachelor who agrees to have lunch with an old flame (Xavier Dolan regular Suzanne Clement). Lo and behold, turns out he had a child (yay!) and now he’s dead (boo).

Without asking for as much as a blood test (the kid looks nothing like him), Daniel goes to his hometown, visit his biological son’s school, meets his classmates, chats up the stunning teacher the kid was stalking (Diane Kruger as your average Hamilton, ON educator), and takes everyone at face value. As days go by and he’s unable to leave town for one reason or other, Daniel comes to the realization there’s no value in being rich, handsome, and single. He should have had a kid.

A remake of an Israeli film with the same scriptwriter and director (Savi Gabizon), Longing is mannered and progressively ridiculous. At the same time is profoundly backwards thinking in subjects like disability and abortion. You can’t help but feel bad and a little embarrassed for Richard Gere, delivering overcooked dialogue as if it was the highest form of poetry. Here’s hoping Gere’s next Great North adventure (Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada!) is worth his (and our) time. Two stars (out of five).

Longing is now playing in Vancouver and Toronto.