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Bruce Greenwood is especially praiseworthy as [Geoffrey]. He starts off somewhat dorky looking with slicked back hair and a slight mechanical manner; then, with a minimal rearrangement of his hair, he becomes the ideal sensitive man, and finally, when he's erased part of his programming in a romantic attempt at suicide, he loses control of his limbs and jerks around in a most alarming way.
Harrold - as romance scribe, Tanner - pitches her acting to the needs of the hypothetical framework and in so doing makes actions viscerally real. Also, Greenwood as cyborg Geoffrey is a compelling Frankenstein's monster gone futuristic, who knows not what he does despite his all-too-human facade.
It's hard to believe this is the same actor who gave the Genie-nominated
performance as a grieving father in Atom Egoyan's 1994 critical and
commercial success Exotica. Still, Greenwood hams it up nicely as an
android purchased by a romance novelist (Kathryn Harrold) stung too many
times by real men that she opts for the artificial version.
Rapport between Harrold's lonelyhearts romantic and Greenwood's synthetic
Romeo is so appealing that viewers may root for them to find happiness in
this bizarre mixed marriage. |