Robot & Frank                   4 stars

For a simple yet elegant story about aging we go back ten years to 2012’s Robot & Frank starring Frank Langella as Frank, an elderly man living alone who spent time in prison for some heists committed in his younger days. Frank has two adult children who he wasn’t exactly a model parent to, but son Hunter (James Marsden) who looks after him on occasion has decided that Frank needs the assistance of an in home robot that can cook, clean and care for Frank. Frank soon figures out that the talking robot can also be commanded to assist him in committing burglaries so starts a new project training the robot to commit crimes and getting it to tell him the chances of success. It’s a pleasing comedy-drama that is driven by the excellent acting skills of Langella whose versatility has been featured in roles such as President Nixon, Chief Justice Warren Burger, Perry White in Superman Returns and Count Dracula in his long career. The movie was directed by newcomer Jake Schreier, who followed up with Paper Towns in 2015. I was very entertained by this comedy. Look for Susan Sarandon as the town’s librarian and Law & Order’s Jeremy Sisto as the sheriff.