Spike Jonze x Absolut I’m Here Screening

We gathered in a car park in London, the rain carrying a damp concrete chill into the screening space. Music bounces off the bare brick walls, and TVs hang from wrought iron poles. Lights illuminate the concourse and a bar at the far end serves vodka cocktails. The vibe is tasteful urban squalor, shabbier than thou.

Spike Jonze’s I’m Here is a 30-minute short film funded by Absolut, and TCOLondon was among a select crowd invited to enjoy a preview screening.

The film sees Andrew Garfield and Annie Hardy play two robots who fall in love. Wrapped in the same warm glow as all Spike’s work, it rolls along to an ethereal soundtrack, with scissors and glue special effects and a kooky, quirky romantic vision. There’s also a subtle undercurrent of dark manipulation. Like Percy Sledge said, when a man loves a woman he’ll trade the world for the good thing he’s found. Turns out the same is true for robots.

Absolut’s branding is non-existent inside the film’s surreal universe, although they inevitably made their presence felt at the screening space. Still, as long as a maverick genius like Spike is getting to express himself, who’s complaining?