This may be one of the best science fiction films you’ve never heard of. I just watched it last night, and posted the review below on Amazon. The ratings/reviews are all over the map, and I found that intriguing, so I wrote a sort of “meta review” through the lens of what other people thought of it.
A lot of people didn’t like that it’s the opposite of a blockbuster action-adventure sci-fi Michael Bae theme park ride. True enough, and it appealed to me precisely because it’s subtle and psychological and cerebral, and as slow-paced as befits a story about an astronaut trapped for years inside a small windowless space no bigger than a house trailer. It worked precisely because the audience was made to feel what this lonely astronaut felt.
But I’m just paraphrasing my own review, so I’ll knock it off. Here’s a trailer, below is the review. And oh BTW, you can watch it “free” on Amazon Prime, Comcast victims on Hulu; otherwise you might spend a couple of bucks streaming it online (see Can I Stream It for a listing).
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goBhEmC8nW4)
4.0 out of 5 stars Good science fiction, November 16, 2014
The distribution of rating stars says that this is a controversial movie in some ways, and the reaction of the reviewers is, I think, important to reviewing the movie. It’s all very meta…
I gave it four stars, and they lost a star for a horrible technical mistake that many reviewers noticed: consumables. One generous reviewer tried to paper it over with hand-waving about an unknown “future technology”, but sorry dude, they lost that star fair and square.
Reviewers also criticized the movie’s stilted dialog, but here’s a case where the filmmakers got a technical detail right and translated it into good story telling. For most of the movie, the speed of light caused communication delays that meant that the astronaut and mission control were essentially sending letters to each other. Of course the “dialog” was stilted—it wasn’t dialog! But during the brief period of Earth flyby when realtime communication was possible, there were real conversations and the characters could react to and play off each others emotions. They got it right.
I think that good science fiction is about the human experience of extraordinary circumstances, and by that standard this movie was good science fiction. It was a one-man show, a psychological study that took place almost entirely inside a small windowless box. The creators wisely chose not to resort to standard tropes like cutting to mission control for scenes of frantic activity. They kept the focus entirely on the experience of one man trapped in a box for years, millions of miles from home, kept sane by the thin thread of contact with “Bob” from mission control, well-played by Bruce Baumgartner.
Finally, reviewers criticized the slow pace of the movie, with many calling it “boring”. But again, wasn’t that integral to the movie? You try living in a 20×10-foot windowless box for years, and I guarantee you that your sense of time will become seriously distorted. Even that worked for me, though I advise you to not watch this movie in the morning after several cups of coffee. It’s OK in this case, and not an insult, to say that it’s a good bedtime movie. Late at night I could relax into the movie’s pace, and float along with it with no sense of impatience.
I liked it, and time watching it was well-spent. You’ll go hungry if you’re looking for an adrenaline rush, but it’s good brain food.