British television director Jim Archer’s feature film debut Brian
and Charles about a lonely man named Brian (David Earl) living in Wales who
decides to build himself a talking robot named Charles Petrescu (Chris Hayward)
for a companion is another one of those short films (made in 2017) that received
a fully-fledged theatrical remake.
While
not an uncommon practice with George Lucas’ transition from short to feature
filmmaking emerging in similar fashion and more recently the American horror
films Lights Out or Come Play stemming from internet shorts, Brian
and Charles while a generally light and sweet natured crowd pleaser
represents a case of a minimal concept stretched out to feature length with hasty
if not padded results. What was a cute
and energetic little snapshot of a man and his synthetic companion living alone
together in Wales grows flat and tedious as a two-hour film.
After a thunderstorm and lightning rages the
otherwise nonfunctional robot to life and Brian gives his creation a name, Brian
and Charles are off and running enjoying life together. That is until, with the expansions upon the short
film of the same name, Brian’s Frankenstein-ed artificial person starts tiring
of the same routine in Wales and dreams of life on the beaches in Hawaii.
The setting and locations
of the Welsh countryside, mountains, plains and tightly knit communities lensed
gorgeously by Murrett Tullett in panoramic widescreen are wonderful. If Ben Wheatley ever directed a PG rated film
instead of his usual offbeat British handheld horror fare, it might look
something like this. Then there’s the
main actors David Earl who is a likable scruffy teddy bear of a guy with his
quirky pet dog-like talking robot by his side.
It all sounds like a nice time, right?
Sweet and gentle comfort food is fine with a
generally languid pace and approach to storytelling is perfectly alright. Somewhere in Brian and Charles was the
energy of the previous short film of the same name, in moments. As a whole, not going to lie, it stagnates but one can’t fault them too hard for trying to
give us a robot buddy comedy from a place you don’t usually see on the big
screen.
--Andrew Kotwicki