User Reviews

The story of Alex, a reticent, genius robot programmer, and his enchanting robotic cat: who return to his home town, at the request of the director of a university of robotics.

There he must find a suitable human template in order to bring a lifelike personality to a newly designed line of robot boys.

His preferred candidate turns out to be his niece: daughter of his former lover, Lana, and her husband: his estranged brother.

Alex delights in the company of his niece, further complicating his relationship with his sister in law: with whom he is still, very much, in love.

An elegantly told, love story, spiced with mechanical cats and the cutest girl in a red coat since... "don't look now"

I came across this movie on Netflix streaming movies. At about 90 minutes long it is just right. Set in the future when robots are fairly common, filmed mostly in the mountains of Switzerland in the winter, a snowy village in a valley surrounded by mountains. The language is Spanish with English subtitles.

I really like this movie, it is about family and friends more than about robots. But the lead billing goes to Daniel Brühl as Alex Garel, a very creative robot designer who left a project unfinished some 10 years earlier. Now he has returned to the town and to the institute, finding his former girlfriend married to his brother, but he has not lost his feelings for her.

The couple has a child, young Spanish actress Claudia Vega as Eva. The title of the movie is "Eva" so we know it will be about her. Alex first encounters her when he is looking for a bright, curious child to model his new project after, to give this new robot a mind that is interesting. So he asks Eva to help him even before he finds out whose child she is.

Yes, the robots are fun to watch, even the robotic cat that follows Alex everywhere. But the story is really about relationships and Alex coming to grips with some issues left undone.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: As the story moves forward I began to suspect that Eva was really Alex's child, she looked more like him and had his curiosity. But the bigger surprise is about 20 minutes from the end when Eva falls non-responsive in the snow as her mother is looking for her. She is actually a robot, the project his girlfriend finished after Alex left. Mom revives her with a new power cell but when Eva discovers she really is a robot she pushes her mom who then slides down and falls maybe 100 feet into the snow below. She dies in the hospital, Alex is left to care for Eva and decides she cannot continue on, so he says the code for all robots, "What do you see when you close your eyes?" and she falls non-responsive.

Well, at the same time- this movie disappointed me, as well as it surprised me... Warm and sad story, but predictable from the early beginning. And here they are, the obvious facts: - Eve is a robot - Probe robot will attack Alex - Alex will show his (love) emotions to his ex-girlfriend, Lana - Brothers will fight and more... Sometimes, reminds me on the "A.I." and "I, Robot", but it's clearly visible that this is European (good) production. The 1st half is good- but the second is a little messy, slow and somehow, too quickly turned to the end.

Inthe end, this is good movie- but...

I've marked this review as containing spoilers because I'm afraid it might dis-guide you (and it will) or think differently about the way you approach this movie... and nobody deserves that! At least in not in this movie...

But for a summary tag line, my only argument about this movie would be: "This is the first time I'm writing a review..."

Should be enough, but still, this movie deserves more much more than just a pure emotional line from a very simple and common IMDb user...

It's a beautifully told story about the old cliché "Robots vs Humans" (that one starts to think it's going to be) and the differences (or not) between them...

It was the first time I was lead to believe that robots shouldn't be treated differently... and *****MAJOR SPOILER***** the movies final (awkward) seconds just try to prove it! (I must talk about the ending because most of my mates thought it was a bit too much... and it wasn't, it's there for this very reason!)

I can only believe IMDBs poor user rating is due to the fact that Sci-Fi doesn't appeal the mass public...

But its 12 wins & 28 nominations speak for themselves... and many more are to come...

(SPOILERS) WARNING! MANY SPOILERS

I only have few complaints about EVA which was very good, but could have been great.

(1) Unless I missed it, all you have to say is "What do you see when you close your eyes?" and the robots "soul" is destroyed? Since there is a GOD/CREATOR/FRANKENSTEIN theme, maybe only the "creator(s) could "kill" their own creation, rather than anyone on a whim saying the magic words... I didn't see this explained in the film(?)

(2) The relationship between Alex and Eva is crucial to the film..and very complex. At first it seemed like a innocent romantic infatuation similar to Pierre and Françoise/Cybèle in Sundays and Cybele (1962) but EVA the movie is way too short to develop the budding relationship and give it true life. The depth of Alex and Eva's bond is what makes the movie, or could have.

However, rather than 10 year old Eva being a muse to an older man, we find out (spoilers) that being a combination of Alex and Lana, Eva is more a daughter than niece to a distant uncle.

(3) I don't think, despite her guilt, that Eva meant to hurt/kill Lana. It was totally unlike the robot prototype in the lab which had a murderous meltdown and needed to be terminated. Eva was just acting human, and it was precisely the FREE WILL given to her by Alex and Lana, that caused her to react to the mind shattering implications that SHE was not human. Eva was just pushing her mother away in anger, but not with murderous intent. Her inaction on the mountain top was more of shock, and impotence being a little girl. She could not have pulled her mother up even if she wanted to.

This was not an evil deed that need her "death" More frustrating is the father's (Alex's) inability to ask Eva what actually happened and realize that she was not an out of control machine needing termination.

This leads into the more profound themes of the film. As robots evolve to where they are indistinguishable from humans, shouldn't the protections of human justice prevail? Shouldn't Eva have had a"trial" or some therapy like a "real" child? But..it is so easy to kill a robot rather than consider that their "souls" are as sacred as human kind.

The old Asimov caveat of robotic law has a profound and perverse effect on the non-flesh and blood humans man is trying to create. A theme that Mary Shelly knew well enough about nearly 300 years ago.

And what about Eva? If she HAD "lived" what then? Another "flaw" was that the film starts 10 years after Eva was created, and she just happens to be 10 years old.. Does Eva "grow" or will she remain 10 forever, and what are the implications of that? What did the scientists envision for robots like Eva if they WERE successful?

(4) Finally, when Eva dies, what she "sees" is her view of heaven...a robots view of heaven, living in the idyllic world of her human family.

A robots dream... to be a real little girl.....just like a well known literary puppet.

In a larger sense, man cannot create a human from machinery. To be human is to be flesh and blood, to grow old and eventually die. It is what makes our time on Earth have meaning. A robot can be intelligent, it may have a "soul" but it can never be human...and a robotic humanoid like Eva can understand that...which is the paramount tragedy put forth in the film.

This is the kind of amazing sci-fi fairytale movie that can never get made in corporatised Hollywood. I loved it, even the overly simplistic robot "programming" by dragging and dropping emotion modules. The hard part would be creating those emotion modules in the first place. I loved the characters in this movie, the acting was superb and the script was excellent. I loved moments such as the flirtatious android secretary near the start. Major Spoiler: Sometimes I am looking for twists, but in this movie I wasn't analysing the plot too much, mainly because I was distracted by the plot hole of the unrealistic robot tech. I wasn't alert to the clues, in particular the extremely clever hint that Alex's prototype robot reacted in a similar way to the emotion-recognition tests as the girl had earlier. The movie has similar themes to the excellent AI, though this movie had much more warmth and AI had a final act that weakened it. If you liked Eva, a darker, obscure movie you should see is One Point O