Think Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets Arrival meets E.T. The Extra Terrestrial meets The Martian meets Gravity and you pretty much have the cinematic inspirations for the latest outer-space entry known simply as The Astronaut, although you have to hand it to debuting writer-director Jess Varley for adding a twist none of the above remotely thought of. Whether audiences will buy it is a larger question for this film, which is premiering at SXSW in the Narrative Spotlight section.
Kate Mara, who was actually earthbound in The Martian, this time gets the Matt Damon role of an astronaut, Sam Walker, returning to Earth after a very long time in isolation in outer space. Her reentry into society isn’t a smooth one and she is informed she almost died before splashdown due to some sort of mysterious force that physically touched her. Nevertheless, she is happy to be back and to see her husband Mark (Gabriel Luna) and daughter Izzy (Scarlett Holmes) again, as well as her father, Gen. William Harris (Laurence Fishburne), who is also overseeing her return. In order to reconnect she is taken to a remote but nicely appointed home in a deserted forest area where she will spend some time before returning to society.
For the first half of the rather short film (it really is about 80 minutes, with another 10 or so of endless credits) this plays more like a psychological thriller as Mara is left alone in the large house, and also given a tour of its elaborate underground facility where she can venture in case of emergency to be locked away from outside forces of any kind. Strange noises and occurrences start to grab her attention, and they intensify to the point where she believes she is seeing some odd creature-like movement through the window. Her human encounters try to calm her fears, as does her family visits and an outing in the nearby woods. Nothing unusual here, Harris assures her. But slowly we get the feeling that maybe something from outer space might have followed her back to Earth or even hitched a ride?
The intensity builds and this film indeed becomes about close encounters of the familiar kind. Just how that occurs and what it means for Sam would be way too much of a spoiler, but credibility is the key. We either go with where Varley wants to take us or we don’t.
Mara is quite effective in acting as the fear increases that something major might have happened to her on reentry, even as she tries to resist signs along the way. Fishburne plays it all straight, and there is support from Macy Gray, Luna, Holmes and Ivana Milicevic as a doctor. Still, for much of this it is virtually a one-hander for Mara, although not so completely as Sandra Bullock in Gravity.
The special effects are serviceable but we have been down this cinematic sci-fi road more than a few times in that regard. Ultimately, The Astronaut doesn’t soar quite as high as some of the better entries in this universe, notably Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which I kept thinking about watching this unfold. Its climax just feels a bit rushed and a little incomplete for this to be more than a minor addition to an overly ripe genre.
Producers are Brad Fuller, Eric B. Fleischman, Chris Abernathy and Cameron Fuller.
Title: The Astronaut
Festival: SXSW (Narrative Spotlight)
Director-screenwriter: Jess Varley
Cast: Kate Mara, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Luna, Ivana Milicevic, Macy Gray, Scarlett Holmes
Sales agent: UTA
Running time: 1 hr 30 mins
Content shared from deadline.com.