Rent Robert (2015)

Robert....! - Robert review by porky

God, Dont even Go There ......... it was So bad i cant even think of anything to say about it . choose something else that is actually watchable .

Spoilers follow ... - Robert review by NP

Jen Otto (Suzie Frances Garton) isn’t well, she isn’t happy and she isn’t finding much support from husband Paul (Lee Bane). Their son Gene (Flynn Allen) has been given a doll, a bug-eyed grinner called Robert, by recently sacked family cleaner Agatha (Judith Haley). Robert will be Gene’s best friend forever, promises Agatha. This is writer/director/producer Andrew Jones’ first foray into Robert’s world – the doll is an enigma he would return to more than once.

From then on, strange and unaccountable things begin to happen in the family house. Naturally, poor Gene gets the blame for this, but he’s adamant the doll is responsible. If only mum and dad would pay a bit of attention to the evidence. When Jen’s painting is daubed with red paint, the doll’s shoes are covered with red. Wouldn’t there have been a few footprints? The situation is fairly unreal, but that doesn’t mean that a certain logic should be ignored.

Where the film scores though is in the characters – Jones always writes really well for his characters, and you feel especially for Jen’s plight: she is mentally fragile anyway, and the more outlandish things happen, the more likely it is to everyone else that it’s all in her mind. The doll, however, sits and leers through it all, as relationships reveal their strained nature and resentment bubbles to the surface as a result of Robert’s interference. It is pretty creepy stuff, but rather less so on the occasions when the prop is required to move.

I don’t often comment on other reviews but a lot of online viewers have been negative about this and I truly don’t know why. A horror story about a malevolent doll (based on a true story, apparently – according to IMDB, Robert Eugene Otto (Gene) was first given Robert the Doll in 1906, when he was just six years old, by an angry Bahamian servant with an interest in black magic and voodoo) can either make you laugh or scare you: either way, you’re going to be entertained. Perhaps the lack of humour, no knowing wink to the audience, aggravates the audience. Perhaps the leisurely pace of proceedings (a trait of Jones) is to blame. Surely people aren’t shallow enough to criticise a low-budget project for having a low budget? This isn’t a Hollywood blockbuster and has no intention of being. A pity that people can’t enjoy these films for what they, rather than when they’re not.

I enjoyed ‘Robert’, as I have enjoyed all of Andrew Jones’ output. The ending, open to interpretation, is particularly effective.