Getting old. Like it or not, it will happen to the best of us. When pondering our twilight years, we tend to opt for visions of comfy cardigans, excellent health, dignity and a loving, supportive family. If you fear senior citizenship will be anything less, Robot And Frank could hammer nails into the coffin of your optimism.

In cinemas this month, starring screen veterans Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) and Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking), Robot And Frank focuses upon an odd couple.

Set in the near future, semi-retired Frank is a career cat burglar with dementia. To look after loner Frank, his son buys a robot which assists with personal and domestic needs. Initially defiant about the robot’s presence, Frank gradually softens to his computerised carer.

How we treat older people is an undercurrent of Robot And Frank, but this potent social issue quickly fades. What comes to the fore is strangely aimless. The partnership of cranky Frank and his metal mate ambles somewhere between drama and comedy, skirting the edges of deeper meaning.

This elegantly composed film doesn’t prod our attitudes to the elderly, but they should be prodded.

What does the nursing machine in Robot And Frank say about the value we place upon our elders? Is it a warped prediction of the future, or sadly reflective of how things already are?

Created in God’s image, people are people—when they are young—AND older. Do we take God’s approach to the elderly—or the Robot And Frank method?