Review: Spaceman

Director:  Johan Renck

Stars:  Adam Sandler, Isabella Rossellini, Carey Mulligan

Ostensibly a break-up movie in which emotional distance is rendered via extremely literal space, Netflix Original Spaceman casts Adam Sandler as the furthest man from home; a Czech astronaut named Jakub Prochazka on a solo mission in the vicinity of Venus to investigate the Chopra Cloud; a strange phenomena haunting the skies. Jakub maintains daily transmissions with his pregnant wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) back home. But when Lenka abruptly breaks off contact, Jakub grows paranoid that his deepest link to Earth has abandoned him. Feeling more alone than usual, Jakub starts hearing a strange voice (Paul Dano) after a vivid dream of a spider-like creature burrowing under his skin…

Opening with shots of a space-suited Sandler wading through a verdant river scene, Spaceman openly recalls the vivid links to water and nature that open Andrei Tarkovsky’s seminal philosophical sci-fi essay Solaris. That the plot of Spaceman involves a seemingly impossible contact aboard an isolated spacecraft – one every bit as functional and cantankerous as Solaris Station – implies a keen link between the two. Or, at the very least, a pervasive influence. Jakub gets a scare worthy of Jake Gyllenhaal in Enemy when he goes to the lavatory only to encounter a man-size spider that he eventually names Hanus* (the aforementioned Dano).

Anyone with arachnophobia may want to steer clear of this particular thought-experiment, as Hanus’ CG nimbleness is liable to prove itself pure nightmare fuel for the delicate. So too those with a weakness for claustrophobia. The spaces inside the Jan Hus 1 are very tight, leaving Jakub few places to hide from his admittedly friendly visitor.

That Hanus first manifests in dream form and inside Jakub’s head leads the suspicion that the creature is an extension of the astronaut himself; a psychotic break brought on by his newly felt dislocation from the Earth, but the extant phenomena outside the spaceship begs the question as to whether this is a genuine first contact with an alien lifeform, projected directly into Jakub’s perception of reality. Ground Control does not seem to detect the arachnid.

Either out of an open trust in the otherworldly or the relief of finally having someone to talk to, Jakub adjusts quite well to the presence of his bemandibled extra-terrestrial acquaintance. The two discuss facets of humanity, a dance that slowly closes in on the man’s relationship to his wife, but first via the subject of betrayal in relation to Jakub’s unresolved feelings toward his father, a ‘traitor’ to the ‘party’.

Sandler is oft dismissed but just as regularly worthy of the gambit, with auteur outings like Punch-Drunk Love and Uncut Gems (which garnered him a Best Actor trophy at that year’s Independent Spirit Awards) adding credence to his body of work. Granted, Sandler makes no discernible effort at a Czech accent, but in all other respects his work here is muscular and serviceable, even if it doesn’t quite achieve the pirouettes of those aforementioned highs. It is effectively his show. Supporting players back home like Mulligan as Lanka, Isabella Rossellini as the space mission’s spokesperson and token tech guy Kunal Nayyar are scantly-seen reserves. Mulligan gets the most between flashbacks and hallucinogenic manifestations. She is, unsurprisingly, as dependable as ever.

Director Johan Renck is perhaps best known for helming the austere HBO miniseries Chernobyl, and puts in proficient work here comparable to Duncan Jones helming another notable one-man-mission movie; Moon. He employs a few neat, even psychedelic fish-eyed camera tricks, particularly when Jakub indulges his memories of Lenka. But in the main he defaults to a dreamy zero-G drift that befits the contemplative nature of the piece.

Audiences may well be divided when it comes to Hanus. The CG used to invoke the creature often feels almost there. Detailed, but also vaguely shiny and weightless, especially when sharing scenes with the solidly craggy Sandler. Dano’s vocal work slithers with S sounds, treated to feel softly cavernous, like a voice inside your head.

If only the backstory around Hanus sounded like anything other than sub-standard ’60s Star Trek waffle. Just as well, I suppose, that Jakub is generally more interested in telling his own stories than listening to the far-flung tales of his visitor (an exceedingly human trait). In this, one supposes, the true nature of Hanus is confirmed.

Sad and soulful, Spaceman is an effort that thrives come the finale, when Max Richter’s melancholy bed of synth music cushions Jakub through a series of self-discoveries about what means the most to him, while the pastel swirls of the Chopra Cloud ensure its an attractive soft landing for all concerned. The ultimate phenomena of Spaceman might be the well of memory. Our capacity to keep – for better or worse – the intangible.

A lighter-weight alternative to the genre big-hitters that have obviously inspired it, the result is entirely befitting of Netflix’s non-committal approach to – ugh – content. Still, this is by no means a failure, and is likely more thought-provoking than a lion’s share of the platform’s Originals.

Weightless but not entirely weightless, if you get my drift.

*pronounced “Han-oosh” as opposed to “H’anus” – it’s an Adam Sandler flick so that could’ve gone either way.