Check a dictionary for the phrase “profoundly depressing,” and you’ll find this film.
There’s a tiny cinematic sub-genre that I’ll call “futility drama,” wherein a given premise is catastrophic from the onset … and then gets progressively worse. Heroic action is either inconsequential or useless; failure is inevitable. Recent examples include 2003’s Open Water and the 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
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| Sully (Felicity Jones) and Adewole (David Oyelowo) can't understand why they aren't picking up any transmissions from Earth's numerous spacecraft support facilities. |
The setting is February 2049, three weeks after “the event.” This incident never is specifically disclosed, but visible computer modeling screens reveal that it began in major metropolitan centers and then spread outward; the implication is the mutually assured destruction of war. The result is that Earth’s air has become radioactive and/or poisonous, killing everything: all plant and animal life forms.
The effect hasn’t yet reached the Arctic Circle’s Barbeau Observatory, which has been abandoned save for Augustine (George Clooney), a scientist who — alone among the facility’s sizeable staff and research team — chose not to return home, and to certain death. The irony is rich: Although he suffers from some undisclosed medical condition that requires frequent blood transfusions, he already has outlived everybody else on the planet. He’s literally the last man on Earth.
(Right away, the psychology feels totally daft in scripter Mark L. Smith’s adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel. Everybody else left? Nobody else remained with Augustine, in order to live a few more weeks? That’s ridiculous.)
Augustine has everything he needs, and — as flashbacks soon make clear — he’s a loner by nature anyway; his entire life has been consumed by his research. Clooney persuasively depicts the grinding struggle of a man in constant discomfort and pain, who nonetheless goes through the motions, valuing each fresh moment of survival. Even so, he’s spent: bone-weary and resigned to an inevitable fate.
On this particular day, he’s reminded of the spacecraft Aether, returning from a two-year mission to explore K-23, a previously undiscovered moon orbiting Jupiter. The five-person crew, commanded by Adewole (David Oyelowo), has no idea that they’re returning to a dead planet. They need to be warned, but the Aether still is too far away; the observatory’s antenna isn’t strong enough for a signal to reach them.
Thus, the challenge: Can Augustine figure out a way to contact the Aether, and — even if he does — would such information even be useful?
Augustine doesn’t know it, but the latter can be answered in the affirmative; the Aether’s crew learned that K-23 is a luxurious, Earth-like world quite capable of sustaining life. (At which point, sci-fi geeks probably are thinking, Shades of the 1951 adaptation of Edwin Balmer’s When Worlds Collide.)
Then, an additional hiccup: Augustine discovers that he isn’t alone. He’s startled to discover a little girl (Caoilinn Springall), and we’re reminded — thanks to one of the flashbacks, showing the base being evacuated — that a frantic mother was separated from her daughter. The girl remains silent, but watchful; this film’s closest brush with levity comes from the crusty Augustine’s grudging acceptance of her presence as a companion.
Clooney and young Springall definitely have a rapport, and it’s well utilized.
From this point onward, the narrative bounces back and forth between Barbeau Observatory and the Aether. In addition to Adewole, its crew includes Sully (Felicity Jones), Mitchell (Kyle Chandler), Sanchez (Demián Bichir) and Maya (Tiffany Boone).
It’s quite refreshing that Smith’s script makes them a mature and capable team; we get none of the stupid melodrama or temper tantrums so common to lesser examples of deep space missions. These are professionals, which they’d need to be, having lived and worked closely for two years.
Mitchell, the pilot, is a family man, eagerly looking forward to his return home. Sanchez, an astrodynamicist and navigation specialist, has a wry sense of humor; Bichir’s ready smile is quite captivating. Adewole and Sully have become an item, and the latter is pregnant. Maya, younger than the others and on her debut mission, is enthusiastic but clearly unseasoned.
Unfortunately, having introduced us to these engaging characters — the pair on Earth, the quintet in space — this becomes more than merely an “end of life as we know it” scenario; it’s also an increasingly contrived “everything goes wrong” narrative. That’s both tiresome and disheartening; it feels like Smith and Clooney — who also directs — are jerking us around, out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
The narrative aside, there’s no denying the awesome design and verisimilitude of the Aether itself, and all of the space sequences; visual effects supervisors Matt Kasmir and Chris Lawrence were kept busy, and the result — thanks also to cinematographer Martin Ruhe — is breathtaking. The Aether is essentially an immense, mobile space station, with all manner of tech and compartments jutting out at odd angles (as would be the case, in a gravity-free environment).
The isolated and empty Barbeau Observatory is equally striking, courtesy of similarly excellent work by production designer Jim Bissell. No question: Clooney’s film looks sensational.
Too bad it’s saddled with such a dour, dreary and distressing storyline.
Smith’s dubious handling of character psychology and behavior becomes an issue again toward the story’s end, with a decision that I didn’t buy for a moment. Perhaps worse, Clooney — as director — cheats, with respect to point of view. In light of what eventually transpires, several earlier scenes are simply false. That’s a literary no-no.
And it’s merely one of many aggravating elements in a storyline that feels utterly pointless. I’ve yet to find an entry in the “futility drama” sub-genre that is worth a damn, and this one’s no exception.
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