Copyright © 2021 by Netflix
Story
On her final space flight, Commander Marina Barnett (Toni Collette) has been assigned for a two-year research operation to Mars with her crew consisting of biologist David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim) and medical researcher Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick). After a successful takeoff, the team finds an interloper Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson) hidden in a ceiling access panel. He unwittingly damages the ship’s CDRA which scrubs away carbon dioxide to prevent any onboard from suffocating. As aborting the trip is impossible, the three travellers will need to decide if the mission is still their priority.
Review
Space expeditions are always a risky and dangerous exercise for human beings to continue broadening our reach beyond our own planet in the name of preserving humanity. Writer-director Joe Penna reminds us of how susceptible and feeble we really are in a foreign environment and engages us with a thought-provoking philosophical offering sans the horror movie clichés (of aliens and evil conglomerates or robots) that are commonly utilised in framing the familiar peril-in-space tropes about a moral dilemma faced when our lives are on the line.
A perceived general view which has no direct answers to the situation the people are put in. It is about sacrifice and who gets to determine the order of importance. Will they be able to live with the consequences from that loss? Penna and Ryan Morrison grant a profoundly gripping, realistic and captivatingly acted drama. The direction is uncluttered and the sci-fi does not rely on any aggrandisement in exploring its issues from every possible angle to the detriment of its less than stellar spacewalks. But even the unlikeliest condition can be used to amp the dread and Penna is a wonder at that.
It is during interactions with Mission Control, we only hear a one-sided conversation involving the crew’s reactions, shoving us to scramble and figure out the rest. It is tense and Penna is refining this technique, having done previously in his debut effort ‘Arctic’ where a stranded Mads Mikkelsen is exposed to a brutal, subzero weather. Joining Mikkelsen and producing identical complexity and intensity are shared equally among the four actors, never overblown. Collette is amazingly strong and centered allowing Anderson to be tender and moving as the titular character. Kim’s range finally is in full display and it peaks at a career best thus far but it is Kendrick whose performance conveys anxiety, shame, empathy, conviction and vivacity from the onset till the film’s heartbreaking end is the key to why it hits as deeply as it does.
Rating
Entirety: A-
Acting: A
Plot: A-
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