MOVIE INFO VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES:
Six months into a solitary research mission to the edge of the solar system, an astronaut, Jakub (Adam Sandler), realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth. Desperate to fix things with his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan), he is helped by a mysterious creature from the beginning of time he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship. Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano) works with Jakub to make sense of what went wrong before it is too late.
REVIEW:
That Adam Sandler can act, and act very well, doesn’t come as a surprise to me. I knew this ever since Punch Drunk Love. Sandler won a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his performance.
In Spaceman Sandler is playing a variation on Major Tom from David Bowie’s Space Oddity. His Jakub, a Czech astronaut on a solo scientific mission to explore a dust cloud, is subsumed in profound sadness, insecurity and total isolation. He coexists in a therapeutic relationship with a spider like entity (voiced by Paul Dano) that could be either something from his anxious mind or something really ancient born from the Big Bang, the original remnants of our emotional id.
The film is adapted by Colby Day from Jaroslav Kalfar’s novel Spaceman of Bohemia. Like the book, Spaceman is primarily a story of marital discord, the wake-up call from not only the separated wife but the universe itself, for a man too fixated on personal dreams to see that he’s losing the most precious thing he will ever have. It’s a bitter sweet love story tinging into tragedy. While Jakob is reeling towards find the beginnings of the Universe, his marriage is ending.
The Czech space endeavor is a commercial and not a political one. There is no angst or conflicts about a long dormant communist past popping up. The only Russian reference is to Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris . It’s more akin to the Star Child sequence that was the psychedelic finale to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Jakub is discovering both his essential humanity and cosmic essence. Striped of the political, Jakub is allowed to become sympathetic, and Sandler takes advantage of it to deliver a great characterization.
The creature that Jakob names Hanus, is both a therapist and a mirror that uncomfortably reflects back the broken promises Janus made to his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan elevating a one note role).
You no longer interest me,” the spidey bluntly informs him, once it becomes clear that Jakub can only see himself, and therefore has limited capacity for discovery. Much of the alien’s depth is thanks to Dano’s superb voice work.
The vastness of the Universe eventually overtakes the human drama. The marriage begins to seem trivial compared to the enormity of what is about to be discovered and happen. The coolly observed mid-shots and the broader views of Jakob surrounded in the enormity of space intended to show Jakub’s melancholia and isolation are actually undercutting the emotional closeness, the bridging between husband and wife. Life is lost in the vast universe. Pathos is the best humans can do to overcome this. The darkness doesn’t allow anything greater than itself.
Spaceman gets a 3.0/5 or a B. It’s streaming on Netflix.
CREDITS:
Directed by
Screenplay by
Colby Day
Based on
by Jaroslav Kalfař
Produced by
- Michael Parets
- Channing Tatum
- Reid Carolin
- Peter Kiernan
- Timothy Headington
- Lia Buman
- Max Silva
Starring
Cinematography
Jakob Ihre
Edited by
- Scott Cummings
- Simon Smith
- John Axelrad
Music by
Production
companies
- Tango Entertainment
- Free Association
- Sinestra
Distributed by
Release dates
- February 20, 2024(Berlinale)
- February 23, 2024(United States)
Running time
107 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
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