Heartbeeps

In the times of the rising Star Wars mania, Universal Pictures decided to bring to the world their own clone story of cute talking robots, therefore releasing Heartbeeps. That way, the viewer got the unique opportunity to see the comedian Andy Kaufman, known from Miloš Forman’s biographical flick Man on the Moon, in the main role of a Hollywood production. Director Allan Arkush, creator of funny low-budget comedies, now moved on to his first high-budget production, which became perhaps a tad too much for him to handle (one might wonder why several obviously failed takes were even left in the film). The screenplay was written by a somewhat inexperienced John Hill, and that’s our stumbling block – the film revolves around some kind of aimless quest for the meaning of life, and was probably intended as a light philosophic work, but didn’t turn out that way. The effort to lighten it up is in itself counterproductive and the resulting humour is sometimes childish, sometimes weird and sometimes just not funny at all. Interestingly, this fact is acknowledged in the script and the characters admit several times that their jokes are plain bad. This relative self-awareness makes for a slightly better experience. The happy ending is a little forced and a darker closing would enrich the film with a different dimension and quality. Despite all that, I don't want to resort to a rating below average. With all its weak points, it is a piece of filmmaking that will move you and make you smile and has a strange sweetness to it (‘It suffers from terminal cuteness’, as Roger Ebert aptly put it). If I was to watch it as a child, it may have even made me cry. And it was primarily made for child audiences. Adult viewers at least get to enjoy a bizarre flick with amazing music by John Williams! (05/11/2018)