Finch
APPLE TV+Miguel Sapochnik's Finch is a heartwarming and tender surprise feature that showcases a wonderfully intimate central performance from lead actor Tom Hanks and a rather poignant dynamic between man and machine.
Set on an apocalyptic earth decades in the future, Finch follows Tom Hanks’ titular character as he begins a literal and thematic journey with his newly created A.I. robot and beloved dog. The themes and narrative here are both conventional and rudimentary on paper. Nevertheless, director Miguel Sapochnik alongside writers Ivor Powell and Craig Luck present these themes in this narrative in such a layered and immersive manner that makes Finch the success it is.
Hanks is incredible at what he does here, essentially working with a blue screen background and two other characters – with one that can not speak and the other a CGI block. Granted, having the weight of Hanks ability to carry the feature on his shoulders is a crutch any director and screenwriter would take. That does not stop the seasoned actor from producing an incredibly emotive role with an anxious internal weight. It is an attribute that is slowly but surely conveyed and becomes apparent in its second act, but Hanks does a beautiful job of balancing this fragility on screen. It is compelling, emotive, and deeply immersive with the story that unfolds.
As aforementioned, Hanks, on paper, has little to bounce off aside from the setting and newly built robot Jeff – voiced by the surprising Caleb Landry Jones, who sounds eerily similar to Michael Pitt's villainous robotic turn in Rupert Sanders' Ghost in the Shell. Jones does a brilliant job of crafting immersion with a wonderful rendition and balance of humanity meeting naivety, of which the material is here in clumps and explores terrifically. It is as if a child is finding hope and reality in a deprived world, and that theme of opening going against the closing of Hanks' character adds a layered underbelly of depth and weight.
The chemistry, brevity, and poignancy are utterly compelling in both how Hanks crafts charisma as well as the relationship he has with Jones' Jeff. Their back and forth has a wonderful balance of tone with comedic embellishment as well as grieving, mature poignancy. The weight is produced delicately and with a sympathetic touch from writers Powell and Luck, who ground and restrain for a compelling turn.
A character in itself and one of the most surprising attributes is the use of setting and production design from Tom Meyer. Set in the distant future, Finch does a wonderful job of balancing the known terrors of climate change and uses such in an intense and fierce depiction that crafts tension but brevity and believability based on nightmarish reality. The colour palette is exquisite in its oxymoronic relationship of using bright colours that often conventionally represent positivity yet are subverted in their use of terror and mood. Finch is shot as equally as effective and profound by the director of photographer Jo Willems, who captures the above aforementioned beautifully. Establishing shots of sandstorms look frantic and gargantuan in the literal and figurative spectacle. However, even the more intimate of shots range in character and flair.
Even when the conventional beats and narrative are touching on the predicable, due to Hanks’ wonderful performance, the immersive screenplay, and the scope captured on screen, Finch is constantly entertaining and terrifically paced, with the material never waining or feeling constraint. Balanced wonderfully with an immersive and entertaining core relationship in a sharp and brutal world, an element that works on the surface but only adds to the fire for when the inevitable emotional turns occur with a heartfelt pathos that cuts deep with effective prowess.
