Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

"The Giant Mechanical Man" is a romance about two people who are finding difficulty finding their places in life. One sometimes make money busking as a giant robot on the street, the other is a lady who just seemed rather scatter-brained and weak-willed. Together, the pair strike up a relationship that somehow works.The reviews for "The Giant Mechanical Man" are all very positive. While there were aspects of the film I really liked, I was far less positive about it, mostly because some of the writing seemed sloppy. Too often, characters in this movie seem like caricatures because they are very broad and unrealistic instead of believable. I wouldn't generally say this about the leads, Jenna Fischer and Chris Messina-- they seemed to transcend the crap characters around them, though Jenna's character could have used a bit more backbone. I think the writer intended to show these pairs of lovable losers as whole people and the 'with it' folks around them as lacking but it made the film very unrealistic and slight instead of a nice romance...which it could have been had the supporting characters (the totally one-dimensional sister and the motivational speaker) been the least bit real, non-annoying and worth seeing.

I had high hopes for this movie before I started watching it. I'm a big fan of Jenna Fischer, Chris Messina and Malin Ackerman (though not so much so Topher Grace). And though the Indie Romance genre may be a bit hackneyed, I've always found enjoyment in the littler things that many of these movies have to offer - artistic cinematography, witty banter, and moments that your average viewer can relate to. This movie, however, was lackluster in all of those previous components.If I were to sum up my experience viewing this film in a sentence, it would be: This film has all the tell-tale signs of being written by a try-hard, vapid, parentally subsidized, film school attending hipster who is too far divorced from reality to convince me that I should feel for any of the protagonists in the film. I know that Lee Kirk is probably far from being that kind of person, but his film conveyed that message to me.Jenna Fischer and Chris Messina star as two aimless (or let's not sugar-coat it, USELESS) adults in their 30s, the former who can't seem to hold down a job, and the latter who is a quarters-per-day street performer who lives in a giant urban loft with his girlfriend who is about to break up with him. Now don't get me wrong, having unemployed, 30+ year old millennials as protagonists have worked well before because through the evolution of the plot, they reveal likable and respectable qualities about themselves. That was not the case in this film. The only thing that they convinced me of, perhaps too many times, is that they "feel lost", they "don't know" what they want to do with their lives, and that they have the angst I'd expect from a 14-year-old at a Death Cab For Cutie concert.The plot of the film focuses on the struggle that these aimless 30 something protagonists have against the antagonists portrayed by the working adults in the film who "have it together" and "have their lives figured out". Since the protagonists by themselves don't give me any reason to like them by themselves, the film resorts to an unbelievably farcical portrayal of the latter cohort that paints them as so lacking in any empathy and emotional maturity that I couldn't help but cringe anytime one of these characters received any screen time: the two cheesy guys in suits publicly bragging about their Christmas bonuses at the company party (seriously, who wears suits to a company party), the hiring manager at the temp agency (who fires Jenna Fischer in such a farcically unauthentic manner that in reality, it would sound 'lawsuit' bells employment lawyers everywhere), and Malin Ackerman's character who won't stop pestering her older sister, and forcing Topher Grace's character on her. And Topher Grace, good grief - what sane working adult would think that an over-the-top narcissistic, corny inspirational speaker who half fills conference centers at your local airport's Holiday Inn is a model of success in this day and age? I've seen more believable exposition in Hillary Duff movies.At the end of all this, I was left wondering - is this the level of comical absurdity you have to relegate employed, marginally successful members of society just so that, in juxtaposition with our worthless 30 something protagonists, we're supposed to identify with them? Sorry, not me.

It fulfills everything that a romantic comedy wants to be. I.e., a sweet, cute, warm, encouraging, adorable, amusing, snuggle-worthy, young adult date (or post-breakup, or looking for someone) film. The plot setup is clear and you can see at least romantically where this is going within the first 5-10 minutes. Not a film to go to if you're looking for mystery or suspense or women screaming in fear with hands to their head.It is, however, a new take on a common story line, and the writer/director does an excellent job of creating parallels. There are only so many new takes you can get on young adult romances involving those misdirected or lost and confused, so it's worth seeing for that and a variety of subtle insights.As is befitting a giant mechanical age of program loops, it is easy to see how a giant mechanical man could have ended up writing this story as part of a biography.But I'm still disappointed Jenna's character didn't do something about the artificial zoo juice.

This is a small movie, a sweet character study of a couple of 30-somethings who are struggling to figure out what to do with their lives.I have become a Jenna Fischer fan, not so much for her TV shows because I haven't seen them, but for her intimate movies, like this one and "A Little Help". She grew up in the heartland, Indiana and Missouri, and exhibits that simplicity and innocence in her roles. Some see her and think that she can't really act, but she is a fine actress, the nuanced performances, with just the right expressions, and timing of her dialog.Here she is Janice, single and working for a temp agency. Crap work. The one instance we see is her being hired for a day to stand in front of the door to an empty closet in an art museum, just to make sure no one attempts to enter the door. Add injury to insult, her temp boss tells her she has been getting unfavorable comments so she is being fired.And further injury comes when she is being evicted for failure to pay rent, so she is forced to ask her younger sister if she can stay with them.Meanwhile in a parallel story Chris Messina as Tim is a "performance artist", basically dresses as a Giant Mechanical Man on stilts and with blue and silver makeup and matching suit, he walks the city looking for spots to stand and entertain the public for coins and bills dropped into his open briefcase. His live-in girlfriend gets tired of this and moves out.Naturally Janice and Tim encounter each other, at first she sees him being interviewed on TV, then sees him on the street, but they don't meet until both show up at the same time answering a zoo ad for help. Out of his makeup she doesn't recognize him, but he remembers her. When they become friends they realize that have a lot in common, they both feel a bit lost in the world and each is a bit fed up with friends and family telling them what they need to do.Pretty Malin Åkerman is Janice's sister Jill . She fixes Janice up with long-haired Topher Grace as Doug , an author who specializes in self-help books, but in reality is a self-centered bore. Janice sees through him right away and never gets interested.(A guilty pleasure for me was seeing Bob Odenkirk as Mark , the brother of Tim's outgoing girlfriend. I have come to enjoy him in his recurring role in "Breaking Bad" as the shady lawyer Saul Goodman.) Anyway, this is a nice, small movie about adults who don't really know what to do with their lives but know they want something better. In the end Tim accepts what he loves to do, while Janice finds she has a knack for operations at the zoo and we leave her as she has become the habitat assistant. And pretty good at it! Did I mention that I am a big Jenna Fischer fan?