'Robot & Frank' a consistently gripping character study

The very first moment of ‘Robot & Frank’ is kind of a groaner: a title card flashes before the woodlands of upstate New York, informing the audience that the film is set in "the near future".

At once, the golden rule of show-don't-tell is broken, while the time-sensitive ambiguity of the information can come off as careless and frustrating. But ‘Robot & Frank’ is for the few of us out there with enough patience to last beyond the initial five-second frame of a movie.