Spaceman
February 28th, 2024
MOVIE: SPACEMAN
STARRING: ADAM SANDLER, CAREY MULLIGAN, PAUL DANO, ISABELLA ROSSELLINI
DIRECTED BY: JOHAN RENCK
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 3 STARS (Out of 4)
To be floating in space alone is a much different kind of loneliness. We’ve seen it in Gravity, The Martian, and now in Johan Renck’s new film Spaceman, the question becomes how would you handle it if the person you love, millions of miles away, wanted to break it all off. The answer is the entire movie, with Adam Sandler in the lead, with something deeper at hand, a kind of human emotion that makes loneliness feel warm and cozy. Spaceman is an emotional, mind-bending, and heart-wrenching journey in outer space.
We meet astronaut Jakub Prochazka (Adam Sandler), who has been on a mission to the outside of Jupiter, where a mysterious purple cloud has arrived, and he accepts the mission to go study what it is. While out there among the stars, his wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) is back on earth, pregnant and struggling with her existence without the person she loves. As the mission continues, Lenka begins to question staying with Jakub, and while the Spaceman begins to lose his mind, he also wants to find a way to rekindle the love he once had.
Narratively, Spaceman will be a challenge, with a methodical pace, with what feels like a series of conversations. Some between a husband and wife over futuristic telecommunication. Some between a mother (played by the great Lena Olin) and a daughter. Some between an astronaut and a giant talking spider. You read that correctly. Midway through, a giant talking spider appears, whom Jakub names Hanus (voiced by Paul Dano), and although the question becomes if any of this is real, the lonely astronaut and his new eight-legged friend have deep philosophical conversations. With flashbacks and his thoughts, we learn about Jakub’s life, his upbringing, how he and Lenka met, and then the story becomes about self-discovery.
The screenplay is what stands out, written by Colby Day, adapted from Jaroslav Kalfar’s book Spaceman of Bohemia. The dialogue is brought to life through Sandler’s sad and stressed performance. This is the melancholy Sandler we see in films such as Punch Drunk Love or Reign Over Me, as he projects his emotions with great honesty. His heartbreak works well with the setting’s real claustrophobia. We only see Jakub floating in his space station and when the terror of Hanus subsides, the relationship between the two is oddly sweet. If we needed more evidence that Sandler is a great actor, he has now proved he can act across from an imaginary spider.
As a science fiction film, Spaceman is on a similar level to something like Solaris and has a narrative bond with George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky. The direction from Renck stays even, and steady, and no matter how obscure it becomes, the material is serious. It is ultimately about the things we go through to realize the love we have. Sometimes it takes a tragic event, a war, a conversation, or a far-off journey into outer space just to find it again. Therapy is cheaper but that’s not how it works when you’re a Spaceman.
SPACEMAN IS AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX THIS FRIDAY MARCH 1ST, 2024.
3 STARS
Written by: Leo Brady
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