Adam Sandler talking to a giant sentient spider way out in space is a premise I didn't expect to be profoundly moved by but Johan Renck's Spaceman did just that. This is the type of emotionally satisfying, cerebrally invigorating science fiction film like Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Duncan Jones's Moon, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar or Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, space stories that balance the visual awe of the great unknown with inward themes of human expression and relationships, a perfect melding of the internal and ultimate external scopes of being. Sandler is Jakup, a lonely Czech astronaut somewhere out past Jupiter, investigating a mysterious purple cloud that recently manifested in the heavens. He has hazy dreams of a wife back home (Carey Mulligan) he seems to miss and soon discovers an arachnid like being also inhabiting his craft, a strange creature from a different galaxy who he gives the names Hanus to, and the two begin to share a transfixing, deeply touching bond of friendship. This is a film that defies descriptors and just has to be seen, and felt. Sandler keeps the fire on a low burn with his performance, I don't think I've ever seen a sadder character onscreen and you'd never know he was even a comedian if this was the only thing you ever saw him in. Paul Dano lends his ethereal voice to Hanus and startlingly tactile CGI is used effectively to bring this gentle, perceptive, hypnotic extraterrestrial to life. He's a character who could have easily been relegated to a metaphor for the protagonist's loneliness instead of being present in the literal sense (so tired of that trope) but no, he is a tangible physical presence and a real elemental being with thoughts, feelings, dreams and sadness of his own. Mulligan uses her melancholic gaze to effect as his wife, infrequently present yet always felt and the cast includes fascinating people like Isabella Rossellini and Lena Olin to bring home the cult film atmosphere. This is that rare sci-fi that dazzles by balancing the visual with the spiritual, telling a story of two lost souls stranded in the vastness of space, looking for answers they find in each others respective experiences existing in the universe, full of all its mysteries. Best film of the year so far.
Review of Spaceman
