Finch

Finch (2021) is about an engineer, his dog and the robot he builds, in a world made unliveable by a solar event. The ozone layer is gone; ten minutes in the sun kills, the temperature reaches seventy degrees, and the storms last for days. Finch lives in an underground laboratory. He has a dog. He is ill and knows he is dying. So he builds a robot, to leave someone behind who can look after the dog. The robot is newly born: it has to learn to walk, to speak and to recognise danger. When a storm approaches, the three of them set out west in a camper. The film is a road story and a story about teaching. Finch gives the robot rules and it misunderstands them every time; the learning is both the humour and the emotional centre. In one scene he tries to teach it not to trust, and tells a story to explain, and that scene is the best of it. Tom Hanks plays almost alone; the second character is digital and the third is a dog. The robot's movement was performed by Caleb Landry Jones and digitally overlaid. Miguel Sapochnik directed. It was made for Apple and went to streaming rather than cinemas. The story is formulaic with no surprises; the film's business is not plot but the relationship between three characters. It runs 115 minutes. Good for: post apocalyptic drama, road films, and Tom Hanks. Less good for: the plot is thin, the pace is slow, and the ending is predictable.