AfterDan Stevensleft the friendly confines ofDownton Abbeyto pursue film roles, there were some who wondered if he made the wrong choice.Downton Abbey, after all, had become a cultural phenomenon, and Stevens’ role as one of the central characters meant he had a job for as long as he liked. Why risk a bird in the hand for two in the bush? And indeed, for a time, it seemed as though Stevens couldn’t find a role as potent as Matthew Crawley. While he was solid in thrillers likeThe GuestandApostle, he was lost beneath CGI and bad writing in theBeauty and the Beastlive-action reboot, and he took gigs in inessential movies likeBlithe Spiritand aNight at the Museumsequel. But right when it seemed like he wouldn’t reach his A-list potential, along cameI’m Your Man, giving Stevens the role he was born to play: a handsome robot.
That may sound like a snide joke at Stevens’ expense, but it’s nothing of the sort.I’m Your Man, a German-language sci-fi romance directed byMaria Schrader, is about a literal robot, programmed to be the perfect romantic partner based on data gathered from the brain scans of countless women. A skeptical archeologist named Alma (Maren Eggert) is coaxed into testing her robot, Tom (Stevens) for a three-week period. Initially, Alma is exasperated by Tom’s romantic overtures, which are both annoyingly perfect (a candlelit bath) and annoyingly imperfect (unsolicited, highly specific driving advice). Eventually, however, her defenses are lowered, and she becomes smitten.
Tom is a role with a very high degree of difficulty. He must act almost completely human, with an emphasis on “almost”: he must not appear too natural or too artificial. His initial, imperfect attempts at wooing Alma must come across as charming, to the audience if not to Alma. There must not be even a hint of manipulation. When he eventually succeeds in getting past Alma’s spiky exterior, the audience must be fully invested in the emotions of a being who is incapable of true emotion. Stevens was asked to balance these considerations, all while acting in his third language. Luckily, he turned out to be an inspired choice for Tom.
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Credit should go in part to the casting director, oneAnja Dihrberg, for recognizing the qualities that made Stevens an ideal Tom. With his strong jawline and piercing gaze, he’s almost cartoonishly dashing, like the result of one of those AI programs that turns Disney characters into real people; it’s very easy to believe that someone who looks like Dan Stevens was created in a lab. The fact that Stevens is not a native German speaker adds another layer of believability to the robot narrative. People speaking a second language, even fluent speakers, often lapse into a deliberate, measured cadence, not unlike a robot’s. (Consider howKraftwerkwere more convincing as robots when performing in English; in their native German, they sounded lessmachineand moremensch.)
The first time Alma (and the audience) meets Tom, he’s at his most robotic. In a simulated early date at a club filled with holographic diners and dancers, Tom is mostly convincing as a human, but he can’t quite hide his true nature. His casual gestures, like the “OK” symbol he makes with his hand, feel mechanical. He busts out bad, AI-generated poetry to praise Alma: “your eyes are like two mountain lakes I could sink into.” When Alma asks him to solve a complex math problem, he answers immediately. There’s charm even in this janky early stage — check out Tom’s goofy little shoulder shimmy when he suggests doing the rumba. But when he starts glitching out and reveals that he’s a robot, it comes as no surprise.
Stevens plays all this with just the right tone of daffy charisma, but if he stayed in that mode the entire movie it might have become exhausting. It’s one thing to be convincing as a robot, but it’s quite another thing to advance past that early mishap and become someone a hard-headed pragmatist like Alma could fall in love with. So while neither Alma nor the audience forgets that Tom is a robot, he adapts to become more natural and agreeable, someone Alma could fall in love with. When Alma rejects his candlelit bath idea, he doesn’t do it again; when she’s bewildered at his sudden reorganization of her apartment, he sets it back to normal within 15 minutes. Eventually, the eye-rolls become less frequent, and Alma starts to become attached to Tom.
If not played right, Tom could have come across as creepy, some kind of loverboy T-1000 adapting and molding himself in order to best manipulate a woman who initially wants nothing to do with him. But Stevens lends him an endearing eagerness to please: not just Alma, but anyone he meets, such as when he calculates the exact dimensions of a framed photo to see if it would fit in someone’s trunk. Even when he’s off-putting, it’s funny rather than unnerving: the audience laughs when he confides in a barista that he’s just pretending to want things, not just because the barista is weirded out but because Tom is so darn proud of himself. Although Tom may not technically feel anything, there’s something ingratiating about his apparent desire to learn more about human foibles. How can anyone deny the kind of guy who studies epic fail compilations with the intensity of a nuclear physicist?
Eventually, things turn romantic, and even dramatic, and Stevens plays it all with skill. He is a calm, steady presence, his soothing, British-accented voice a balm to someone as tightly-wound as Alma, and his gentle nature sands down her rough edges. It really does appear as though he’s perfect for her; Tom may or may not feel anything, but it’s easy to believe that he does. That’s why it stings when Alma is suddenly struck with doubt and sends Tom away early, even if he takes it in stride. And that’s why it’s such a relief when Alma returns to her childhood vacation spot (where she met a charming young boy named Thomas) and finds her lover waiting patiently for her, having stood for three days until she arrived. All of it required a delicate balance, and Dan Stevens was the man for the job.
