‘I’m
Here’ is a short film written and directed by Spike Jonze. Starring Sheldon and
Francesca who are the voices of Andrew Garfield and Sienna Guillory. I would
categorise this short as a sci-fi romance, the reason being, the characters in
the film are presented to us as robots however we can quite clearly see the
display of affection and love for one another. The film portrays Sheldon as
unhappy, displaying his everyday life as bland with no companion or nothing
there to make him happy. A change in Sheldon’s mood and general character
occurs when Francesca becomes a part of his life. When Francesca has all her
accidents, Sheldon at no time expresses any hesitation to help even with the
risk of his own life. Although the film shows the two characters in love, it could
be perceived as Sheldon having a greater
love for Francesca through his actions towards her throughout.
The film comprises evidence of prejudice between a
human female in the film and Francesca. When Sheldon is waiting at the bus
stop, Francesca pulls up and speaks to Sheldon, the female human lectures
Francesca for driving a car, stating that robots are not allowed to drive cars.
This kind of bigotry towards a certain type, in this case a robot, reminds the
viewers of times we can relate to such as black and white segregation. The
female human in the story feels superior to that of Francesca, with her being a
robot, and feels she needs to state this through her announcing Francesca isn’t
allowed to drive a car. The film’s main themes are love, friendship and
loyalty. We see the progression between being friends and falling in love through
Sheldon and Francesca. The loyalty Sheldon has for Francesca is displayed by
helping her throughout the film with the gift of his limbs as she loses hers.
The central character in this sci-fi romance short
film is Sheldon. He is depicted as a kind, giving, yet rather shy individual.
His character is isolated, which can be established when he tries to make
conversation with his neighbours, as they fail to acknowledge him. This in turn
enables us to sympathise with his character. He is shown as an affectionate
character when Francesca is introduced into his life, with him making huge
sacrifices in order to repeatedly help Francesca. When the two characters go to
watch Francesca’s favourite band, she loses her arm in the chaos of all the
people. Sheldon doesn’t hesitate to give her his arm, leaving him with no arm.
This sacrifice shows Sheldon’s kind and loving nature towards Francesca. His
character is very likeable, because of all the sacrifices he makes for
Francesca. The end scene where Francesca is laying on a hospital bed without a
torso, creates even more sympathy for Sheldon because of what he has had to
deal with, and then his ultimate sacrifice, giving Francesca his whole body,
leaving his head on the hospital bed.
Francesca is the love interest to Sheldon in ‘I’m
Here.’ When Francesca is introduced to the story, she is depicted as having a
loud personality, which is shown through her ignoring the female human when she
reprimands her for driving a car, and turning up her music. She is mysterious
as we don’t know about her character to begin with, which is what attracts
Sheldon to her. Her character is extremely ‘clumsy,’ which is what she says as
she lies with one leg missing. Her character continues to lose limbs throughout
the film, until eventually she loses her whole torso. We never truly find out
whether she purposely does this, or whether she is accident prone. When I
watched it, it seemed to me like she was taking advantage of Sheldon’s good
nature, but this can be viewed differently by different people as they watch
the film.
The target
audience for this short film is young adults over the age of 18. Absolut Vodka
sponsored them because their target audiences are the same, young adults over
the age of 18 are interested in drinking so the link is made between them. The
film is most likely to be viewed online and at film festivals, because it’s a
short film and not a feature one. You wouldn’t see a film like this on the
television, like you would a feature length film.
