BEFORE: Today's film is another one, like "Uncut Gems", that had a lot of Oscar buzz at one point, only it all went away, I guess when other films took prominence. This one ended up with just one nomination, for Sound Mixing. Ouch. Still, I'm intensely curious about it, so it's part of my Oscar Hopefuls screener-based round-up. And I'm only about two months late, thanks to the extended romance chain.
Natasha Lyonne carries over from "Uncut Gems". If you missed her in that film, she wasn't seen but only heard as the voice of someone from the Boston Celtics organization, speaking to Sandler's character on the phone. OK, I realize that may not seem like a big role, but her voice appearance counts for my purposes, and it was a role that served a purpose to the plot. When I make my linked chains, I often don't know how large someone's role is going to be - maybe she'll have a bigger part today?
THE PLOT: Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and a doomed expedition from 30 years before that threatens the universe.
AFTER: I skipped over another film from last year, which is on my secondary list, that has Natasha Lyonne in it - "Honey Boy". I failed to grab that screener on my last day at the studio, that's one reason I skipped it, but also I didn't have a slot for it in March, I had to cut something or I won't make my (admittedly arbitrary) themes for certain holidays. For now I'm looking at a film that I think feels appropriate for April 1, and I was over. Of course, I could have doubled up, but I already doubled up once in March, and I also never know if I'm going to need these slots later in the year, so it comes down to a judgment call based on a feeling. I can circle back to "Honey Boy" later via Shia LaBoeuf, maybe after the virus lockdown ends.
It turned out Natasha Lyonne had another small role, she just played a person processing astronaut's paperwork when they get to Mars, but again, even that counts for my linking purposes. Oh, yeah, Brad Pitt goes to Mars. (Did you think he would let Matt Damon have all the fun?). Should probably issue a SPOILER ALERT here before I give away anything else that people might not want to know before watching this film. And with Brad Pitt front and center here, tomorrow's film is probably very easy to predict.
Here's what I can tell you about the (near?) future seen in this film - the timeline's a little weird because this film's past hasn't really happened yet, so this has to be set at least 30-plus years from now. We're still a ways away from sending people to Mars, and this story has to happen 30 years after that, so, what, 2055? 2060? And by that point it's interesting to note that flights to the moon are commercially available, and run by Virgin Air. It's about as easy for people as flying across the world, I guess, only a pillow and blanket will run you $125 for some reason on that flight. I'd hate to think how expensive the fruit and cheese plate is. The moon is also considered free territory, it doesn't belong to any one country, which seems noble until you also realize that means there are also disputed war zones and freelance moon pirates.
From the Moon, astronaut Roy McBride hops aboard another spacecraft bound for Mars, which is where SpaceForce wants him to go to send some kind of message to his father, who decades earlier went out to get cigarettes from Saturn and never came back. Actually McBride Sr. was part of a mission searching for signs of intelligent life in space (if you ask me, they should try to find some on Earth first) and the theory is that once you get to the outer planets, away from most of the sun's radiation, you can really get a better look at planets in other solar systems. Roy has long assumed that his father was dead, but SpaceCom suspects that he's alive, and might be responsible for these weird power surges coming from Neptune that are reaching the earth in waves and causing all kinds of destruction. If that's true, you may notice that one power surge was timed to hit Earth JUST as Roy was outside working on the giant space antenna, so yeah, probably Daddy doesn't care about his now-adult son.
The scripted message is sent, but Roy can't resist also making an emotional appeal to his father - it seems maybe he's had some time to think while on the way to Mars. This does not please his superiors, and he's scrapped from the mission. But after meeting someone working on Mars whose parents were also part of his father's LIMA project, he realizes he needs to be on that spacecraft heading to Neptune, so he sneaks on board, and, umm, things don't go so well. That's really as far as I want to go talking about the plot, but hey, it's a space mission movie. Things go right and other things go wrong, and the characters have to deal with that as best as they can.
If I'm being honest, I didn't fully understand everything that happened after that point - I had to go to the Wikipedia plot summary to figure out all the details. Space is also very quiet, and very lonely, and there's not a lot of talking between people about what exactly is going on. There's also a lot of time for self-reflection and inner monologuing - it takes almost 80 days to get to Neptune, which seems like progress, but also, the ship didn't seem like it was going that fast. Whatever. But maybe there's something in here for people who are right now self-isolating because of the Covid-19 virus - I saw one news program interviewing Scott Kelly, who spent like a year in space, to find out how astronauts deal with being in very small spaces for long periods of time. And then there's a process where they have to re-connect with friends and family after long periods of isolation, and what does it all do to them, physically and mentally?
Obviously, the film doesn't have 79 days of time to completely depict Roy's journey, but his monologues do tell us that he probably does go a little nutso - and in the future, all psycho-analysis is done by talking to computers, so that also means it probably also relies on the honor system. If you know what the computer wants to hear, it can be easy to want to provide that. But we also know that Roy's incredibly calm under pressure, unlike some other astronauts I could name - no matter what happens, his vital signs never peak, and emotionally he's a rock, for the most part, anyway. I guess that fits the profile if Daddy took off when he was a kid, and that toughened him up. Add this one to the long list of movies I've seen about absent fathers and the grown-up children they create, I guess.
There's a larger question here, which of course concerns whether humans are alone in the universe. What does that mean if the answer is no - what lengths will we go to in order to find another species on another planet, and are we even looking in the right places? Will we ever be able to find someone else out there, and when we do, will we be able to communicate with them, or will they be ahead of us or behind in the process of evolution? Will they eat us, or will we eat them? And if the answer is yes, we're alone and there's no other intelligent life, what are the implications of that? Is it up to humans to spread out and populate the universe, or at that point are we considered some kind of fluke, an accident that happened on our planet produced carbon-based life that is somehow unique? Do we have more right to exist and expand, or none at all? Even if this film doesn't supply all the answers, I applaud the attempt to raise the questions.
I see a lot of similarities to other films that I've enjoyed over the years - "2001: A Space Odyssey", first and foremost, because of the mission to the outer planets, and its sequel, "2010", for its mission to track down a previous spaceflight and figure out what went wrong. Then there's "Contact", that film based on a Carl Sagan novel where Jodie Foster played the astronaut with some similar daddy issues. "Interstellar", of course, raised some of the same questions about man's place in the universe, only it ultimately supplied more answers than "Ad Astra" did (or maybe just the opposite answer) and then throw in a little bit of "A Wrinkle in Time", which also had someone tracking down their absent father out in space.
The ultimate message, one that may be right on point for our current situation, is (I think) that sometimes you have to be alone for a long period of time in order to learn just how valuable your connections to family and friends are. At the start of the film, Roy says things like "I will make only pragmatic decisions, I will not allow myself to be distracted. I will not relay on anyone or anything, I will not be vulnerable to mistakes." After the events of the film, he's a changed man, and his final monologue is: "I am looking forward to the day my solitude ends....I'm unsure of the future but I'm not concerned. I will rely on those closest to me, and I will share their burdens, as they share mine. I will live and I will love."
If you can put aside the absurdity of this guy flying all the way to Neptune to find himself, I think there's some poignancy there.
Also starring Brad Pitt (last seen in "Exit Through the Gift Shop"), Tommy Lee Jones (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Ruth Negga (last seen in "Loving"), Liv Tyler (last seen in "Dr. T & the Women"), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), John Ortiz (last seen in "The Cloverfield Paradox"), Greg Bryk (last seen in "Immortals"), Loren Dean (last seen in "The Mule"), John Finn (last seen in "Gifted"), Kimberly Elise (last seen in "The Manchurian Candidate"), Sean Blakemore, Bobby Nish, LisaGay Hamilton (last seen in "Vice"), Donnie Keshawarz, Freda Foh Shen (last heard in "Mulan II"), Ravi Kapoor (last seen in "Book Club"), Daniel Sauli (last seen in "Bleed for This"), Kimmy Shields.
RATING: 6 out of 10 lunar rovers
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