IN THEATRES: Ad Astra

30 years after his father's disappearance on a long-range mission to discover extraterrestrial life, astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) finds himself on a mission to the outer reaches of the solar system, to locate the source of an extraterrestrial phenomena that is causing chaos throughout colonised space. To do so, he must try and make contact with the one person he never thought he would hear from again...

Funnelled through the story of a man trying to unpack the trauma of his father’s abandonment, Ad Astra is one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had this year, and a fine closing statement to the creative instincts of the now-deceased 20th Century Fox.

While I have no interest in eulogising a corporation, after a year of releases that left me frustrated and/or indifferent, Ad Astra felt like a breath of fresh air.

It does use an old trope - an ex-spouse (played by Liv Tyler in brief glimpses) who exists purely as a device for showing the central character's growth. That and the narration feel like the most conventional aspects of the film, but they were not fatal flaws.

While the movie is big, and is based on visual effects, the restraint in these aspects is one of my favourite qualities in the film. 

James Gray keeps his camera anchored to Pitt’s POV - this future is tactile and functional. The world-building is largely implied - for once product placement in a movie feels like a critique - on his Virgin flight to the moon, a blanket and pillow cost 120 credits. In space Capitalism is still on the march, but is straining against the need to survive. 

The spread to other worlds has not led to a fundamental shift in how people treat one another - the military is still engaged in cover-ups; capitalism is funnelling through everything and the moon - though borderless - has become the new frontier in humanity's scrabble over resources.

PItt's performance is just like the movie - small, insular but surprisingly empathetic. Which is remarkable considering how emotionally stunted the character is - constantly evaluating stress levels, Roy comes across as a machine, a man hollowed out by his desire to be the best astronaut he could be, driven by the ghost of a father he both loves and resents.  

Aside from the familiarity of the wife character, the only vague niggle I had was Pitt’s narration, which is a tad obvious. That might be the effect of how effective I found his performance.

For the majority of the runtime, it feels like the the character is just as driven as his father (Tommy Lee Jones), using whatever means necessary to accomplish his objective. There are deaths involved, but Gray muddies the waters over his responsibility and involvement in them - in this future, militarism has not dissipated, but become a part of space - wherever mankind goes, so to does subterfuge, violence and greed.

Which makes the film's final epiphany so satisfying. 

What starts out as an intergalactic Heart of Darkness turns into a tale of a man reconnecting with his humanity. For a film that has seemed so focused on containment of emotion, and prioritising survival over all other considerations, the finale of Ad Astra is ultimately about recognising not that we are alone in the universe, but that in recognising that fact we have to  in turn focus on one another.

A quiet, understated exploration of a familiar question, Ad Astra's rebuttal of the existential dread of humanity's singularity in the universe is one of the most moving experiences I have had in a cinema this year.

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The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996)

When Sarah (Robin Tunney) moves to a new school, she finds herself the focus of a trio of outcasts (Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Rachel True). The trio are a fledgling coven of witches and believe Sarah is the 'fourth' they have been waiting for.

With Sarah on-board, the coven soon realise that their spells are working, and they quickly become intoxicated with the power they have unleashed, using it to rectify their individual problems.

However, when one of their number takes it too far, Sarah has to figure out whether she sides with her friend, or stops her before more people get hurt...

I have heard about this movie for years, but never felt the desire to see it. Partly it was down to sheer misogyny - if it was for teen girls it must be bad. I saw the poster and thought it was some silly YA movie. Thankfully, times and people change - that and every woman critic I read brought it up in a million different reviews of other movies I liked and my bullshit walls began to crumble.

To celebrate Halloween my local arthouse is hosting a festival of witch movies, including this 1996 supernatural drama. Since my curiosity was piqued, I decided to check it out.

Watching The Craft, two things were quickly apparent: First, while I was vaguely aware of the similarities, it is ridiculous how much Charmed ripped this movie off. Once 'How Soon Is Now?' starts playing...

My second takeaway was how mature the movie’s themes are. The movie’s trailer made it look like a typical 90s teen movie, but aside from the soundtrack, there is little about the movie that feels dated.

From a 2019 vantage, the movie’s portrayal of young women discovering their own power is fascinating - the characters use magic as a vehicle for overcoming the things that oppress them. I went back and read the oral history the Huffington Post released around the 20th anniversary, and the filmmakers emphasised how important it was to ground the characters' desire for power in real-world needs.

Sarah is recovering from a failed suicide attempt and a yearning to know her mother who died during child birth; Nancy (Balk) is poor and ostracised as a 'slut' by the upper-class student body; Bonnie (Campbell) is ashamed of her burn scars that she hides under heavy clothing; and Rochelle (True) has to contend with racist bullying from a young Christine Taylor.

Because of the period when it came out, I was worried the movie's tone would be glib. There is a superficial irony to a lot of 90s genre flicks that makes me leery to check out movies I have never seen, but The Craft was refreshingly direct in tackling a bunch of issues people, particularly young women, face - suicide, slut-shaming, consent - without undermining them.

Even the sequence where a hypnotised Nic (Skeet Ulrich) attacks Sarah when she refuses him does not feel comedic. The movie takes its leads and their dilemmas seriously, and that gives their exploration of magic a greater sense of escape and necessity. 

On top of this, there is an earnestness to the portrayal of magic that gives the movie stakes - plus the lack of visual effects gives the movie’s set pieces a real sense of weight. 

Tonally, the movie rides the line of taking itself seriously, while allowing for some great comedic beats - the 'stiff as a board' scene is great, and even smaller moments like the visual of our gothic-up heroines sitting on a bus is hilarious. The movie has a sardonic sense of humour that does not feel rooted in the faux irony and self-awareness of the era, and the movie never ridicules the characters’ beliefs.

The four leads are great: For some reason I always associate Robin Tunney with her appearance in the underwhelming Arnie vehicle End of Days and the TV show The Mentalist. She's pretty solid in those projects, but this is the first performance I have seen where it feels like she gets to run the gamut - she's fragile, she's ballsy, and she centres the movie.

As Sarah's future nemesis, Balk motors through the movie like a berserker. As Nancy, Balk boasts a weird charisma that seems to be both a byproduct and a reaction to the character's deep sense of loneliness. 

While I enjoyed their performances, it felt to me like Campbell and True’s characters needed a little more - I liked their subplots, but I was not quite sold by their mindless following of Balk during the final confrontation between the former friends. 

That aside, I really enjoyed The Craft. I wish I had checked it out sooner. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond called The James Bond Cocktail Hour. Every episode, we do a review of one of the books and one of the movies, picked at random. 

You can also check out my other podcast SugaBros at the same link.