The Quirky Android Rom-Com You Almost Forgot
Heartbeeps (1981) is a weirdly whimsical Allan Arkush-directed rom com about a couple of androids starring Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters. I thought I’d hallucinated this one for 20 years, maybe it was the result of playing with Star Wars action figures while Taxi was on… or seeing the tv-spot while half-asleep… But I was sure I’d made up the idea of an endearingly earnest robot with Latka’s voice. Because how could anything this bizarre get made only to have history completely scrub it from the public consciousness? That is until IMDB came along. On revisit, it’s easy to see this as Andy just wanting to mess with his audience… I felt a little bit trolled. And event a little bit called-out for being nerdy enough to want to see this thing.
It’s an oddball take to be sure, but if you look past the fact that they forgot to include many of the humour circuits during its assembly, you’ll find this movie’s heart is usually in the right place.
I think.