Alma is a scientist coerced into participating in an extraordinary study in order to obtain research funds for her work. For three weeks, she has to live with a humanoid robot tailored to her character and needs, whose artificial intelligence is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. Enter Tom, a machine in human form in a class of its own, created solely to make her happy.
Acting
Dan Stevens' uncanny robotic precision—every blink feels calculated.
Writing
Sharp dialogue that weaponizes politeness into devastating emotional conflict.
Direction
Schrader finds humanity in the silences between Alma's resistance and surrender.
Director
Maria Schrader
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Dan Stevens learned German specifically for this role, performing his own lines without dubbing—a meta-layer of artificial fluency.
The film adapts Emma Braslavsky's short story but shifts focus: where the original satirizes male fantasy fulfillment, Schrader weaponizes 'the perfect man' to interrogate female emotional labor and the impossible standards women navigate.
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