The changing of Issac Asimov’s famous Laws of Robotics is on the way. From Hal 9000 refusing to open the pod bay doors to Will Smith battling mechanical servants, cinema is full of human-made bipedal denizens battling their creators. The motive for creating these robots/androids is to free humans from everyday tasks. And that’s the case of the machine entity at the center of director Spencer Brown’s T.I. M.. The acronym stands for “Technologically Integrated Manservant” and pertains to a human-looking robot that does household tasks and is fully integrated into its owner’s computer systems.
Written by Brown and Sarah Govett, the film is about cutting-edge robotics company troubleshooter Abi (Georgina Campbell). She’s brought in as the T.I.M. project continues to run into technical problems, such as crushing wine glass and other things that must be rectified before it can be sold to the public. The recently promoted Abi has been given a new house, remote and rural, which comes with a T. I. M. unit (Eamon Farren) for her to assess.
Abi hopes that moving away from London means her philandering husband, Paul (Mark Rowley), is less likely to keep having affairs. In this hi-tech home, T.I.M. is very helpful; however, Paul doesn’t like having it in the house. The mechanical man does develop an erotic fascination with Abi as the two discuss love and affection. To his horror and perhaps titillation, Paul finds video footage of T.I.M. sniffing one of his wife’s dresses in the laundry room. Knowing he’s been discovered, the android acts accordingly to control the world and maintain Abi as his.
“…Paul finds video footage of T.I.M. sniffing one of his wife’s dresses…”
T.I.M. is an entertaining film that doesn’t show anything new regarding the co-existence of robots and humans. However, the people in the story give this its charm. One of the hallmarks of genre films, Peter Cushing once describe acting as making the “unbelievable believable to the audience.” Campbell, Eamon, and Farren all hold the screen well in their respective roles. Their interactions range from verbal jousting to T.I.M. interrupting Abi and Paul’s sexual encounter due to detecting elevated heart rates.
Farren ably plays T.I.M. in a menacing, creepy butler sort of way. He delivers his lines robotically yet uses his face to denote mood change. This is a great asset in an actor. Farren verges on Roy Batty’s sense of poignancy in some speeches as he is but a simple machine morphing into… who knows? Campbell sells her fear believably, while Eamon is fun to hate.
Brown and Govett make good use of the wonderful technological house where the action takes place. The camera flows down the hall following the terror-filled Abi like James Whale following Gloria Stuart in The Old Dark House. The corners seem to hide possibly every creepy thing there is. The A.I. fueled aspects, “convenience” they say, are drawn out for some real frights.
T.I.M. is a satisfying look at the horrors of technology as it integrates with our everyday lives. Brown highlights the danger of how real-life advances such as automated vehicles, voice control, and password control must be the “first” to market at all costs.
"…a satisfying look at the horrors of technology as it integrates with our everyday lives."
