Pull up a chair and make yourself uncomfortable. Since a substantial part of daily news hinges around catastrophic climate change, an unending pandemic and political stupidity, it’s reasonable to ask: “How much longer can we carry on this way?” Tom Hanks’s character Finch Weinberg asks that question time and again in the latest post-apocalyptic drama, Finch. The only snag being he appears to be the last person on earth, being kept company by a dog and a couple of robots.
This is Robinson Crusoe minus all chances of ever finding a human colony. This is Turner & Hooch except that Finch is ready to take a bullet for the dog. This is Castaway except that Wilson, the volleyball, is a dog (or is it the robot?). However you see it, it’s a film with one voice, that of Tom Hanks. And any film with Hanks has a throbbing heart.
Miguel Sapochnik directs ageing inventor Finch, who makes it his job to find any human existence after a man-made environmental catastrophe destroys the ozone layer, and grab food cans and medicine supplies that may remain here and there. His night job is to build a robot to look after his dog Goodyear after he’s gone. With only a couple of days left before a superstorm hits his base, which is a building that was once home to Tae Technologies Space Energy Fusion where he worked as a level-five engineer, Finch needs to complete building a robot, boot it with artificial intelligence, and make it learn all actions humans are capable of, including the ability to feel over a period of time. Finch succeeds to create the robot Jeff (a motion-captured Caleb Landry Jones) whose primary objective is to look after Goodyear. Jeff quickly learns to walk like Finch, crack jokes like him and even drive a solar-powered recreational vehicle like his inventor.
During the course of a journey to San Francisco where Jeff hopes to see the Golden Gate Bridge, concepts like trust, hope and failure are discussed. Finch appears clueless when it comes to trust. Perhaps the lack of it made him survive the global disaster and at the same time, the absence of trust is making him fragile.
Instead of drying up like a slice of jerky as in Castaway, Finch has enough food cans to keep him and Goodyear going while Jeff never runs into battery issues. Instead of the one-sided repartee in the Robert Zemeckis-directed film from 2000, here it’s mostly a conversation between a man and a robot, broken only by arf-arfs of a pooch.
However simplistic appears the plot of a bruised-and-battered inventor, a spindly robot (there is a second robot that mostly stays under the radar) and a calm dog making their journey in a 1984 Fleetwood RV Southwind recreational vehicle through an unending hostile environment, plenty of important questions get thrown around, most important being the one around leaving all the legacy of mankind to an intelligent robot. Ultimately, Jeff appears to become the vehicle that interprets the past and become a representative of humanity that’s under a mountain of rubble.
All the heavy stuff is made bearable by Tom Hanks’s immensely likeable acting and measured voice. He believes in a brand of acting that thrives on honesty and kindness, instead of making money by selling cynicism. He is given ample support on this sci-fi on Apple TV+ by the director’s deft hand at restraining visual effects to a bare minimum. As always, Hanks comes across as the loveable neighbour who never fails to invite everyone over whenever there is a barbeque while letting out a Midwestern shout now and then.
Sadly, there is no neighbourhood left in Finch. Like American Pie, the song that kicks off the film, Finch talks about the end of a certain-something. Hope? A farewell to trust? Just like high ideals give way to cynicism in the Don McLean song, the film shows a man who isn’t as positive about the state of the world as he was a generation ago. There is a glimmer of hope symbolised by a car that follows Finch’s trailer for five minutes. There’s a sense that not all is lost as Finch hopes that someday Goodyear will chase butterflies and play catch in a park. Yet, all Finch can do is dream while taking swigs from a bottle of Jameson whisky and plenty of coffee.
Humanity is racing against time to undo many man-made climatic catastrophes. We live in anxious times but with Tom Hanks at the driving wheel and a dog in the passenger seat, there’s hope.
Finch
Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Cast: Tom Hanks,
Caleb Landry Jones
Running time: 115 minutes
