Overview
Robert is a major character in Screwdriver. He is portrayed by Charlie Farrell. Robert is a thirty-six-year-old academic, Melissa’s husband, and an old high school friend of Emily.
Robert has a kind, handsome face and a polished academic manner. His apparent calm helps him present Robert and Melissa’s house as a safe refuge for Emily while gradually making the house the center of a closed system of obedience and dependence.
Role in the Film
Robert welcomes Emily after Sean leaves her and recalls their shared high school past. He frames Emily’s distress as something he can interpret better than she can and challenges her religious beliefs by telling her to find her own God and be her own God. At the same time, he receives calls from Frank about committee business that he tries to minimize in front of Emily.
Robert’s influence over Emily centers on Robert’s chamber exercise. In the first session, he asks Emily to imagine a sequence of rooms, a cigarette, and a glass-eyed cat. In the second, he introduces the screwdriver, tells her that God hates her, and instructs her that only he, Melissa, and the house can protect her. The exercise shapes Emily’s later rejection of Sean as a tempter.
Robert maintains a close relationship with Elouise, his teaching assistant, whose photograph Emily finds hidden in a textbook. He says he and Melissa helped Elouise through home trouble, counseling, thesis work, and graduate-program entry. He later becomes embroiled in an Eloise-related committee conflict, with a final decision that appears to end his career hopes.
As Emily’s situation deteriorates, Robert becomes more desperate and coercive. He intrudes on Emily in the bathroom while helping her into a dress, tells her that it has always been him and Emily against the rest, accuses her of betraying the house by letting Sean inside, watches while Melissa attacks her, and helps drag Emily from the bathroom after she finds the hidden prescriptions. He is last seen at the beach walking slowly toward the shoreline after Emily agrees to remain with him and Melissa.