I really dislike the feeling of being scared. It’s why I refuse to watch horror movies. I don’t think it’s enjoyable to feel terrified when I have an hour or two to watch a movie. Space epics make me feel the same way. And not just in the “we’re all just meaningless specs in this giant universe” type of way. Well that, but also more. It’s the feeling of being trapped despite how expansive everything is – It’s the fear of being suffocated. It’s a fear of loneliness and loss. Space movies such as “Gravity,” “Interstellar” and now “Ad Astra” have done a good job at channeling those feelings. I remember when I left the theater after “Interstellar”, I had to pull over on the side of the road because I was crying so hard. I haven’t watched any of these movies more than once and I suspect I’ll never watch this movie again because I don’t like being trapped in those feelings for the movie’s extended period of time. I probably should ask a therapist about why I’m so averse to those feelings, but that’s a different animal. However, that doesn’t mean these movies aren’t incredibly made, moving, well-acted and gorgeous.
The movie is supposed to evoke those feelings of loneliness – it the first movie Brad Pitt’s filmed after divorcing Angeline Jolie and he’s mentioned that he thinks “experiencing more life” makes you a better actor. Channeling the pain and emotion from his most recent life experiences clearly worked for him. There’s a scene where Brad Pitt’s character Roy McBride is supposed to read a pre-written speech as a plea for his father (Tommy Lee Jones) to answer the government from wherever he is in Neptune’s orbit. Instead, Roy audibles and decides to make an emotional plea to his father, who is potentially lost in the abyss of space, asking for him to reach out so that they can spend more time together. It’s incredibly emotional and some of the best work we’ve ever seen out of Brad Pitt. However, it was one of the few times I felt emotionally connected to his character. It’s interesting because he’s the only real character in the movie – the others can barely be called supporting characters because they’re in the movie for such a short period of time. This is meant to add to his isolation but I actually would’ve enjoyed further fleshing out of the other characters. The movie utilizes voiceover and “psych evaluations” to give us insight into the character but oddly, it made me feel further away from him. Also, both storytelling devices seem unnecessary – they should have just utilized the psych evals. The psych evals are conducted by putting a little patch on your neck to track your heartbeat to test the accuracy of what you’re saying; at the beginning of the movie they mention that he’s never hit above 80 bpm in any of his psych evals or any other tests required of someone in his position. He mentions that it’s because he doesn’t feel anything, but it isn’t clear what’s made him so hardened and unemotional. When he’s on his 79-day solo mission to Neptune, we see him slowly lose his mind watching two videos of his ex-wife (Liv Tyler) and his famous missing father. But it’s not clear why these videos impact him so deeply, especially because we get almost no information on the wife. I don’t even know why she was in the movie since this is clearly a Father-Son story.
What is both cool and scary to me is the world building. Through Roy’s journey to find his lost father, we’re taken from Earth to the Moon to Mars, past Saturn and finally to Neptune. On Earth, it seems to be business as usual. When he flies to the Moon he takes “commercial” not “private”, and the flight attendant thanks everyone for flying with them. When Roy asks for a blanket and a pillow the flight attendant charges him $125 – the crowd in the theater got a kick out of that. Inflation must be a real issue in the future! When we get to the Moon, it’s like an amusement park, with kids taking pictures alongside dress-up aliens. Clearly it’s extremely normal to fly to the Moon, but they don’t kid us about the endeavor – the flight takes multiple days. I can’t imagine ever wanting to sign up for that – I’d be so claustrophobic. To get to Mars, Roy has to cross the Moon to get to a special launch. We’re told this is an extremely dangerous journey as the area in between is a war zone. The U.S. is not the only country that has stations on the moon – there seem to be clear areas that belong to each country and protocols that people must follow. Those in the empty space killing people are called “Pirates” and they’re not the Jack Sparrow-type that we’re used to but they are still extremely cool. Roy and a small team try to cross the Moon in ATV-like vehicles (I’m not sure how they can drive on the Moon’s surface due to this thing called gravity but I’ll try not to be so nit-picky because maybe I missed something).
The movie gets kind of violent from here. I think they do a very good job of being realistic about the frequency of death during space travel. Roy ends up safely making it to the Mars launchpad and boards the ship with a small team to head to what is supposed to be his destination. On the way, the U.S. ship that Roy is on recieves a mayday from a Norwegian ship. I thought this was super interesting – Roy objects to answering the mayday as he was sent on a singular mission and didn’t want to be derailed. This is where a small scene makes such a difference in great world building – the captain then responds that it’s protocol and he must respond to the mayday; the only way he’d be able to not answer it is if Roy takes over the ship (which he could do because he’s a Major thereby outranking the Captain) but if he did so, he would have to reveal his intentions. Roy was on a top secret mission and could not reveal his intentions so he picked the lesser of two evils and decided to answer the mayday. In the last 30 minutes of the movie, Roy ends up having to make a series of difficult decisions to finish his story with his father. This scene serves as a final exploration into Roy’s true motivations, and I think it’s done somewhat effectively. The director seems to leave it up to us to decide how we think Roy felt about finding his father and letting him go – are we supposed to trust that he thought his father was in the right or wrong? I’m not sure. I personally would’ve liked a clearer answer on that but maybe the decision to finally let him go was supposed to be enough of an answer.
Ultimately, I would recommend this movie due to the significance of Pitt’s performance and how visually stunning the movie was. The visuals as they travel through space are genuinely gorgeous. Seeing this on the big screen really made me feel like I was entrapped in space (again, a feeling I didn’t necessarily want) but due to the expert world-building and visual effects I didn’t really have a choice. I would like to point out that I’ve seen a lot of movies in the past month and this is the only one where every single seat was filled. Even the crappy seats in the front row were full. If that isn’t the Brad Pitt effect, I don’t know what is. Clearly, I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. These kind of movies make me very uneasy but I also had some issues with the supporting character development and connecting to the Father-Son story outside of a few scenes that were more carried by Pitt’s performance than the emotional attachment to the characters themselves. I’d be surprised if this doesn’t get Pitt a Best Actor nomination, James Gray a nomination for Best Director, and Hoyte van Hoytema for Cinematography and for Visual Effects. But I’d like to ask Hollywood to stop making these Space epics now that the entire cast of Ocean’s 11 has both starred in and been nominated for them. As dazzled as I am by the world building in this movie, I would like to stop entering the terrifying never-ending abyss of space.
