Review of Brian and Charles (2022) by Markhreviews — 26 Jun 2022

Brian (David Earl) is a part-time handyman, part-time inventor in North Wales. He spends a lot of time creating gadgets that don’t interest people: a leather belt that holds three eggs, a standard leather tote bag with pinecones attached to the exterior, a flying grandfather clock that never gets off the ground, literally or figuratively. One soon suspects that Brian takes on these projects to soften, if not mask, the loneliness and solitude of his daily existence. Building on his past “successes,” Brian decides to build a robot complete with artificial intelligence. But Charles, the result of Brian’s efforts, is hardly the sexy, sleek machine we associate with science fiction films like “Ex Machina.” Charles (Chris Hayward) is made from junk and spare parts. He is seven feet tall. His arms aren’t the same length. His torso is a discarded washing machine. Like so many of Brian’s inventions, he doesn’t work until one fateful dark and rainy night (see what they did there?!) “it’s alive!”.

Over only a few days, Charles evolves. He reads a dictionary overnight and immediately has a full command of language. (“Bat Boy,” anyone?) He develops a curious fixation with cabbage. He dances in place when he simply can’t contain his excitement about this new world around him. Eventually, his inquisitiveness begins to expand Brian’s self-imposed boundaries. Charles also moves quickly from wide-eyed innocent to rebellious teen, with ear-splitting rock music accompaniment and the capacity to deliver a sense of jaded indifference when answering “whatever” to anything he finds uninteresting.

This feature film is the product of a stand-up comedy routine and a 2017 short film written and performed by Earl and Hayward. In lengthening the material to 91 minutes, Earl and Hayward have added some fairly predictable plot elements – a love interest for Brian (an underused Louise Brealey from TV’s “Sherlock”) and a confrontation with the town bully that has potentially dire consequences for Charles. Director Jim Archer, in his feature debut, uses a faux documentary style that offers the viewer a series of jarring close-ups that lend a sense of intimacy to the proceedings accompanied by endearing, into-the-camera observations by Brian as he attempts to explain himself.

Like any good film about artificial intelligence, Earl and Hayward use this platform to explore some larger life questions. Charles wonders whether the world ends at the tree at the edge of Brian’s property. When he sees birds flying overhead, he asks why they can apparently do as they wish, while Brian has established rigid rules to buffer Charles from a sometimes unkind world outside.

But “Brian and Charles” is not fixated on addressing “big issues.” Instead, the film is clearly comfortable exploring pretty basic themes about the value of human relationships (the pillow fight involving Brian and Charles, with the Turtles’ “Happy Together” playing merrily in the background, is fabulous). The film also suggests, gently, that humans need occasional whimsy in their lives and that blindly irrational optimism is a virtue, not a fault. At the end of the day, those modest aspirations, skillfully fulfilled by “Brian and Charles,” are quite enough.