‘Finch’ Film Explores How Dogs Help Define Humanity

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for the movie ‘Finch’.

The film Bullfinchreleased in November on Apple TV+, stars Tom Hanks and a old rescue dog appointed let’s sit down. Critic Tomris Laffly, writing for Varietydescribes it as a “with a big heart… post-apocalyptic saga.”

Hanks plays the titular Finch, a survivor in a world with a failing ozone layer. Expecting it to be soon die from solar radiationFinch builds Jeff, a hyper-intelligent robot voiced by Caleb Landry Jones, to care for his dog, Goodyear.

Bullfinchlike the others sci-fi stories with dogsexplores the human-dog relationship in part to define what it means to be human.

Something revealed “between beings”

In my research on post-apocalyptic fiction — a subgenre of science fiction that imagines the earth as we know it is coming to an end — I was struck by the frequency with which dogs accompany the protagonists of such stories.

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Fiction like I’m a legend (1954) and A boy and his dog (1969), as well as their film adaptationsare relevant examples, as is the film The road warrior (1981) or the “Fallout video game series.

Many scholars write about it post-apocalyptic fiction suggest that one of the genre’s central concerns is defining humanity in relation to nature and our place in the universe.

Similarly, literary scholar Joan Gordon, who has researched science fiction related to animal studiesargues that the speculative capacity of science fiction is well suited to explore the human-dog relationship as “a mutually influential feedback loop between beings as they change and are modified by each other.”

Dogs help make a home

Bullfinch opens with Hanks’ character rummaging through an abandoned supermarket in search of food, and he narrowly returns home before being caught in a terrible storm. “Home” is an underground laboratory, but after descending the cold metal staircase, Finch finds a warm welcome: a rug that reads “home sweet home” and a friendly dog ​​who perks up when his master returns.

Just like pets nowadays can improve the health and well-being of their human ownersGoodyear is able to relieve Finch of the mental distress caused by the apocalyptic social exclusion.

As the eminent historian of utopia argues, Gregory Claeysfear of humanity the dystopian “bad place” is partly inspired by our fear of the dangers that await us beyond the limits of our societies.

Although dogs are not biologically human, Bullfinch suggests that they nevertheless help to differentiate the safe human home from the dangerous outside world.

Dogs as companions

Goodyear works a bit like the dog in the last mana die early examples of post-apocalyptic fiction by the 19th century English romantic novelist Mary Shelley. Shelley’s protagonist, Lionel Verney, ends the novel as a lone survivor of a global cataclysm – in his case, a plague. Looking for companionship, Verney tries to find sympathy among the animals, but when a family of goats refuses to reciprocate his friendship, he concedes that he “won’t live among the wild scenes of nature.”

But like Finch, Verney finds a companion in a dog:[He] never neglected to watch over and care for me, showing raucous gratitude whenever I petted him or spoke to him.

While the dog appears only briefly in Shelley’s novel, a social scientist Hilary Strang suggests that his appearance introduces “a sort of perverse optimism into this rigorously pessimistic novel”, for “in the final moment of the novel there is at least the possibility that more than one living, humanized creature will survive the future”.

At a time Bullfinch and the last man, a line is drawn between the strictly human domain and the domain of nature. And in both cases, dogs are on the side of humans.

Emotion and character

As in other post-apocalyptic stories, Bullfinch considers the nature of human character by exploring the emotional relationship between humans and dogs. Viewers are invited to reflect on their own emotional reaction.

For critic Bilge Ebiri, writing for VultureHanks’ successful portrayal of ‘an ordinary man for extraordinary times’ makes ‘tear tear’ Bullfinch particularly effective. Hanks is able to play “a deeply human and relatable hero, suggesting that one doesn’t need stoicism, expertise, or brawn to succeed against overwhelming odds, but rather decency and vulnerability.”

Whereas Bullfinch shows the positive side of human character, many dystopian works encourage their audience to reflect on their own emotions by depicting human beings acting inhumanely towards dogs.

Contemporary science fiction writer Paolo Bacigalupi, for example, portrays inquisitive but callous bioengineered soldiers abusing a dog in the short story “The people of sand and slag.”

Similarly, Shelley’s contemporary, Lord Byron, took up this theme in his post-apocalyptic poem “Darkness.” Here, the mistreatment of a faithful dog serves to demonstrate the breakdown of human society.

Byron and Bacigalupi, as well as Finch’s director, Miguel Sapochnikall encourage their audience to reflect on their empathetic reactions to human-dog relationships.

Trust and becoming human

The role of the robot Jeff in Bullfinch is to gradually learn what it means to be human. The robot begins as a typically mechanical being but takes on increasingly distinctly human features as the film progresses. The final hurdle Jeff must overcome is earning Goodyear’s trust.

At the start of the film, Jeff tells Finch, “I don’t think this loves me.” Finch replies, “Well he don’t trust you. During a game of fetch, Jeff throws the tennis ball but Goodyear keeps throwing it back to Finch. Jeff again expresses his disappointment, but Finch assures him that Goodyear will return. “Trust me,” Finch said.

As the film draws to a close, we find Jeff mourning Finch’s death. Which should arrive just in time, tail wagging and a tennis ball in its mouth, but Goodyear looking for a game of fetch. Jeff raises his arms in excited triumph as Jeff runs for the ball.

The film’s final message is therefore captured in a passage from W. Bruce Cameron’s book. A dog’s journey (too made into a movie) about a dog, reincarnated, who returns to find his master: “You can usually tell a man is good if he has a dog that loves him..”