If you can watch more than 15 minutes of this movie, I will reward you.
I received this text, picture and all, from my father-in-law on a recent Saturday morning. Never one to turn down a good dare, I immediately fired up Amazon Prime and watched to the 15:01 mark before responding with:
This movie is actually kind of great.
The joke’s on him. He shouldn’t have underestimated my deep and abiding love for offbeat British humor that goes as far back as my days of watching Little Britain in high school. Not expecting his obvious troll attempt to backfire, he decided we should watch the rest of the movie together and I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw anything as hilarious as Brian and Charles. My entire body was sore the following day simply from how consistently this movie made me laugh. It is that funny.
The film’s threadbare premise follows a hapless inventor (Brian) who hasn’t thought up an invention yet that he didn’t like, no matter how superfluous (pinecone bag anyone?). Brian is also lonely and decides to build a robot sidekick after one day finding a discarded mannequin head in a trash pile. Brian’s efforts to cobble together a mechanical companion inexplicably bear fruit when Charles, the robot, comes to life and the two immediately form a warmhearted bond.
There is no real central conflict aside from an underlying tension throughout the film of what the consequences will be when Brian’s fellow villagers find out about Charles. Other than that, the proceedings glide along effortlessly as the movie focuses almost exclusively on the friendship of the titular characters and the comedic day-to-day occurrences of a quirky inventor and his homemade robot living humdrum lives in rural Wales. Any parent will immediately identify with Brian’s struggles as Charles “grows” in a way that mirrors the human progression from a curious and precocious toddler to an angst-filled teenager.
I absolutely love this movie. It is unpretentious and sincere in every way. There is no attempt to preach or talk down to the audience. The movie’s only concern is to be as charming and laugh-out-loud funny as possible.
As Brian says, “give yourself a kick up the bottom” and watch this movie.
If you enjoyed reading my Thoughts, consider showing your appreciation by helping to make my dream of quitting my day job a reality.
Accurate.
Same blue eye…. different blog post….