Robin Williams must be stopped.
He cannot be allowed to play any more wise, modestly saintly do-gooders who stop movies dead to deliver lectures about how the rest of us losers should live our lives. Williams has played these roles repeatedly -- in "Dead Poets Society," "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Patch Adams" and "Jakob the Liar," to name four too many -- and he does it again in "Bicentennial Man."In it, Williams plays a robot who wants to become human so he can experience the pain, laughter and tears that are uniquely part of being human.
It's one thing if an actor takes a couple of these roles within a career of playing many different characters. John Travolta played a Naive Do-Gooder Who Has Many Lessons to Teach Us ("Michael"); so did Johnny Depp ("Edward Scissorhands"). But when an actor consistently chooses this part, over and over, it's clear that the choices say something about how he sees himself or about how he would like us to see him.
Travolta had more than his share of sanctimoniousness in "Michael," but he has also played degenerates, crooks, drug addicts -- even lawyers. Williams, at least in his recent choices, has not.
Sadly, something of what makes Williams a unique performer seems to vanish when he takes these roles. He's obviously aware that these characters are hard to take because you see him straining to make his performance modest. Because the strain shows, the "modesty" comes off as superiority, a sense that Williams' characters are holding something back because they know they are too good for this world.
These choices limit Williams as an actor, too. How much talent does it take to make us feel sympathy for a saint? Of course, we admire these characters, but it's impossible for our feelings to grow during these performances.
When characters have flaws and weaknesses that are recognizably human, we relate to them because they are like us. But it's annoying to measure ourselves against these people because their goodness is so all-encompassing, and it's impossible to be moved by Williams in these roles because he is so busy being moved by himself.
What's really frustrating about this rut Williams has dug himself into is that he has unique gifts that are displayed too infrequently. He's wonderful in "The Fisher King," and he has done terrific work in small, uncanonized roles, such as the bitter psychiatrist/butcher in "Dead Again."
The thing those roles share -- and that is not present in the robot Williams plays in his new film -- is that they are frail, messed-up, confused. Like most of us, they're not saints; they are human. It'd be good to see Williams let his humanity shine through a little more often.