The Giant Mechanical Man Synopsis: An offbeat romantic comedy about a silver-painted street performer and the soft spoken zoo worker who falls for him.
When Tim, a street performer, is dumped by his girlfriend for having no direction in his life, he gets a job at the local zoo where he meets Janice, a young woman who feels equally as lost. The two begin to connect but are stymied by Janice’s overbearing younger sister and a self-help guru who is convinced his book is exactly what Janice needs.
The Giant Mechanical Man was a pleasant little rom-com. I had only heard of it when Jenna Fischer posted on her Instagram stories the other day that it was now available on Amazon Prime. I adore Fischer, and I’m a big fan of Chris Messina, so it seemed like a no-brainer to give it a watch.
Both Tim and Janice are aimless individuals. Tim (Chris Messina) paints his face and hands silver every day, dressed in a shiny silver suit, and mounts stilts to head out into the city to mime for money on street corners. Janice (Jenna Fischer) bounces from temp work to temp work, unhappy and lonely.
Her sister Jill (Malin Akerman) is shallow, impatient, and judgmental, utterly oblivious to Janice’s depression and lack of interest in Doug (Topher Grace), a cartoonishly pretentious self-help “guru” who writes books that have titles like “How to Have Winning Conversations” and yet seems pretty terrible at communication.
Janice goes along with Jill’s incessant matchmaking, and one could attribute this to Janice putting everyone’s happiness over her own, but she makes it very clear in her demeanor that she’s not attracted to, or pleased, by Doug’s presence so that makes the entire situation even more exasperating. Janice is too timid to tell Jill to mind her own business, and Jill is too oblivious to Janice’s very blatant discomfort with Doug.
I found Tim’s story to be slightly more interesting, even if he didn’t really have many people to interact with beyond Janice. Chris Messina deserves more roles as a leading man. He has a biting charisma on screen, and his chemistry with Fischer is on point. Janice and Tim’s romance is not whimsical or based on some out-of-reach fantasy. It’s grounded in reality and genuine, and that’s what made it so endearing to me.
I did feel like a few moments in The Giant Mechanical Man were a bit heavy-handed, like Jill and Janice’s inevitable confrontation or Tim, the artist, calling out two successful businessmen who enjoyed watching television and snarking that they ought to read more. None of the supporting cast felt as real to me as Janice and Tim did; almost every single one is a stereotype from other films.
Thankfully, The Giant Mechanical Man is not about them but about Janice and Tim. It’s about finding that one person in the world who understands you can make you feel validated and understand your self-worth. Janice and Tim’s love story gives The Giant Mechanical Man the kick it needs to elevate what is otherwise a pretty simple story.
Watched: 04/27/2020
Notable Song: Remember Me As a Time of Day by Explosions in the Sky