In the near future, the Solar System is being hit by power surges from an unknown source, causing increasing damage and loss of life on Earth. Surviving one incident, astronaut Major Roy McBride is assigned a secret mission.
McBride’s father, H Clifford McBride, had long been thought dead, together with the Lima Project that he was commanding on the journey to Neptune to look for alien life.
But now Roy is told that the surges may be coming from the ship that carried that team – and that his father might still be alive. His mission is to travel to Mars, from where he will try to make contact and find out what is happening and what (if anything) can be done to stop the surges.
Inspired by Heart of Darkness, Ad Astra has inevitably drawn comments about its similarity to Francis Coppola’s 1979 epic, Apocalypse Now – hardly surprising, though, given the shared starting point of Joseph Conrad’s novel.
But written and directed by James Gray, this is light years from being some sort of a remake.
It is a very different kind of space opera: there are few explosions and plenty of time – it’s excellently paced – to give us a sense of the infinite vastness of space and the almost choking awareness of our own smallness.
At once an intimate portrait of a parent-child relationship and also an existentialist meditation both on the meaning of our own, individual lives and also our world, there are myriad threads here. Gray’s targets include our insatiable desire to desecrate nature and and crass consumerism.
The first leg of Roy’s journey is to the Moon, via a commercial space flight. One wonders if Virgin Atlantic knew, when they (presumably) gave permission/paid to have their branding used at this point, that a scene would have flight crew charging rip-off prices for the additional comfort of a blanket and pillow.
While Gray doesn’t over-egg the idea, science is perceived as only offering humanity so much: it comes with dangers, while many of the answers lie within ourselves. Indeed, one can also see the nods here to another iconic Coppola film, in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Ad Astra is the antithesis of macho adventure films, taking on ideas of emotional engagement, vulnerability and mental health. Indeed, the casting of Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland in the same film for the first time since they starred in Clint Eastwood’s 2000 astronaut romp, Space Cowboys, could be viewed as a comment that the time for such a view of masculinity is over.
On a rather less intellectual level, cult film junkies will spot a reference fo John Carpenter’s 1974 sci-fi comedy-drama, Dark Star.
Visually stunning, it’s hard not to imagine Hoyte van Hoytema’s name not being in the frame for cinematography gongs come award season, while Max Richter’s score is pitch perfect.
The performances are excellent: Brad Pitt is really at the top of his game as a the emotionally crippled son, all coiled control and desperate restraint, while Jones never goes into panto territory as his father. Sutherland’s cameo is enjoyable.
If I have one regret it’s that we see so little of Ruth Negga. Her role as the director of the Mars base is small but important, and she gives it the heft required.
But that aside, Ad Astra is a really fine, grown-up film – and one that will stick in the mind for a very long time.
