Finch is curmudgeonly and hostile, at one point berating his “son” by yelling, “I know you were born yesterday, but it’s time for you to grow up!”Ĭaleb Landry Jones and Tom Hanks play an unconventional father-son duo in "Finch." Credit: Apple TV+ Hanks responds not with the gung-ho energy of Sheriff Woody or the signature warmth that made him America’s Dad. But Landry bleeds tender humanity into him with a voice of whispered wonder and a jaunty physicality. Jeff looks like a clamoring cousin of Chappie. So, Finch’s journey becomes an allegory of the tension of the generation gap between Boomers - like Hanks - and their children. While Finch might take pride in the genius of his design, he also sees every advancement Jeff makes as a reminder of his own mortality.
This resentment stems from the thundering awareness that Jeff will be his heir, his replacement, and his legacy.
Then, when he realizes that Jeff was right, Finch crumbles.įinch is both impressed and repulsed by the android he’s created in his own image. He marvels at the speed at which Jeff is learning to think for himself, but barks at him when they disagree. In teaching Jeff the ways of the ruined world, Finch is mercurial, either scolding or patient. Finch is both impressed and repulsed by the android he’s created in his own image. Yet, theirs is no fairytale father-son bond. So, Finch builds a robot boy named Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones in a terrific motion-capture performance), who can talk, reason, and who is desperate to please his pappa Gepetto. (The blood he keeps coughing up makes that clear.) He needs someone to care for his loyal pet. But despite all his engineering, his time is ending. Credit: Apple tv+įor 15 years or so, engineer Finch Weinberg (Hanks) has been holed up in solitude, building machines to help him survive at the end of the world.
Yet amid the radiation and the devastation rides a man, his dog, and his robot son in a battered RV. Deserted major cities are steadily erased by mounting dust pitched by relentless tornadoes. And in that lies an agonized yet meaningful apology.ĭirected by Miguel Sapochnik, Finch is set in a post-apocalyptic America, where a shredded ozone layer makes sunlight instantly skin-scorching. However, within this road trip movie, there’s a hard turn that seems to speak to the younger generations that Hanks knows he has helped raise. Finch features a soundtrack of sentimental instrumentals alongside dad jams like “American Pie,” “Road to Nowhere,” and “Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think).” It's a portrait of fatherhood, centering on a gruff but lovable hero, played by Hanks, of course. His latest initially falls into this cozy niche.
In the last six years or so, Hanks has found a new groove, confidently making “dad movies.”Īlmost annually, he headlines a movie that seems designed to predominantly appeal to Boomer dads, either focusing on untold war stories ( Bridge of Spies, Greyhound) and noble heroes ( Sully, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, The Post) or offering a Western with a softer side ( News of the World). Generations of Americans have grown up watching Tom Hanks, following him from hilarious hijinks ( Splash, The ‘Burbs, and Big) to daring dramas ( Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Cast Away), to a quartet of Toy Story movies and beyond. In the fall of 2016, Tom Hanks was dubbed “America’s Dad” by Esquire, confirming a feeling that has been brewing for years.