American literature of the second half of 20 century

THE BICENTENNIAL MAN

is a 1999 American science fiction family comedy-drama film starring Robin Williams. Based on the novel The Positronic Man, co-written by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, which is itself based on Asimov's original novella titled The Bicentennial Man, the plot explores issues of humanity, slavery, prejudice, maturity, intellectual freedom, conformity, sex, love, and mortality. The film, a co-production between Touchstone Pictures and Columbia Pictures, was directed by Chris Columbus. The title comes from the main character existing to the age of two hundred years, and Asimov's novella was published in the year that the U.S. had its bicentennial.

Plot of the story

• In 2005, the NDR series android "Andrew" joins the Martin family home to perform housekeeping and maintenance duties. The family's reactions range from acceptance and curiosity to outright rejection and deliberate vandalism by the eldest child, Grace, which leads to the discovery that Andrew can both identify emotions and reciprocate in kind. When Andrew accidentally breaks a figurine belonging to Grace's sister, "Little Miss" Amanda, he carves a replacement out of wood. The family is astonished by this creativity and “Sir” Richard Martin takes Andrew to NorthAm Robotics to inquire if all the robots are like him. The company's CEO sees this development as a problem and wishes to scrap Andrew. Instead, "Sir" takes Andrew home and allows him to pursue his own development.