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"And the Lord God created from the rib taken from man, his wife, and led her to man." This is not just a line from the Old Testament, it is a narrative that has firmly established in our culture. From the myth of Pygmalion, which cut out of the ivory of Galatea, to a huge array of films about androids and artificial intelligence: in most of them a perfect woman is created for a man. In real life, the same thing happens. Virtual assistants to Siri, Alex and Alice speak with us female voices. Few tried to turn this story. Even fewer those who dared to take her out of the scope of jokes, a vulgar joke. “I am your man” to Maria Schrader, the first competitive film forced to go to the online Berlin Film Festival, rearranges Galatea and Pygmalion in places.

Alma (Maren Eggert) lives in Berlin and works in the Pergamon Museum. She studies the Sumerian cuneiform writing and wants to prove that even on ancient tablets that mainly served for administrative orders and economic accounting, you can already find poetry. The heroine is not married, she does not have children, and in the eyes of the leadership this makes her the perfect candidate to participate in an unusual experiment: she should spend three weeks in the company of Android, programmed for perfect partnership, not with any woman, but specifically with her, with Alma. As a reward, the boss promises additional financing for her project.

The first meeting with a non -mighty blue -eyed volume (Dan Stevens) is unsuccessful. Android quotes Rilke, compares the eyes of an interlocutor with mountain lakes in which you can drown, and offers to dance a rumba. Almu is firing from such banalities, but you need to continue the experiment. The robot settles at her house. There to endure his presence even harder. He is waiting for her at breakfast with a stack of pancakes, removes the apartment, washes windows, cooks a bath with foam and rose petals in the evening. Instead of joy, Alma expressively demonstrates him his disapproval. But the volume algorithm is improved, it really adapts to the partner, and gradually its actions annoy it less and less.

The easiest way to determine the genre of the picture as a romk. It opens with an episode of dating, standard Boy Meets Girl . “Hi Alma. I'm Tom. " With a comedic component, everything is in order too. The strange behavior of the Android, which turned out to be among people, is an inexhaustible source of gags. However, in all this, from the very beginning, some kind of otherness is felt. Something happened to the eternal plot about the artificially created perfection. As if the basic settings were lost. In the relationship of the heroes - even from Alma - there will be no place of jealousy, nor passion, nor suffering.

Other films about feelings for androids (those in which a man fell into a robot with a female appearance or female voice) sooner or later rested on the question of power and possession. Even in the picture of Spike Jones “She”, a gentle hipster performed by Joaquin Phoenix, it was unable to make the idea that Samantha’s favorite operating system did not belong to him personally, but can simultaneously communicate with hundreds of people. For Alma, this question does not exist. She does not want to rule or own, her dream is to share and share.

With a living man, despite all the risks, this is possible. With a robot - alas, no. His presence nearby pacifies, but deprives the life of struggle, friction, experiences - all that makes a person a man. Actress Maren Eggert, a star of films of the key author of the Berlin School Angel Chanelk, brilliantly conveys this sad awareness of the real state of things. Alma is too smart and pragmatic to buy a mirage of happiness. For the same reason, traditional romantic gestures are unbearable - it easily distinguishes the idea imposed on a mass culture of a pleasant one from her own desires. At the workplace, in the museum, it is surrounded by the creations of human genius. She knows that there is no limit to perfection, but to our desire for him.

Android Tom is the only fantastic element of the picture. Everything else is easily recognized. The scene is a modern Berlin, a metropolis, in which there are not only the Pergaman altar and a bust of Nefertiti, but also Futurium , a unique museum of reflection on the future. Heroes are somewhere between them: as in last year’s “Undine” Christian Petzold, the topography of the city here plays a most important role. It is impossible to imagine a picture of a Schrader in other decorations, as it is impossible to imagine in it Dan Stevens, who speaks English . The British actor in the frame communicates in German - it turns out that he taught him at school. This also works for a general plan. In the relatives of Tom - not replicants from the “Running Blade”, not terminators or ghosts in armor. He, with his ideal manners, an unusual sense of humor and the ability to loop between the ancient columns, is a distant descendant of the Faust Homunkul - a laboratory -created subhuman, a dream of alchemists.

As in Faust, the Absolute in the film Schder is unattainable. Closer to the final, the Romkom shell cracks, exposing the tragicomedy - the favorite genre of modern German cinema. He also resembles several episodes with the delightful Sandra Huller, an actress from Tony Erdmann, Maren Ada (this film, with all the dissimilarity of Ada and Schrader, is also deceptive comedien). There will be no classic happy ending , it will have nowhere to come from. “I am your man” - the story of not a struggle, but acceptance. Technology with us forever. Loneliness too.