When they are confronted by rivals and her father is killed, Cee is forced to form an alliance with the survivor of the attack (Pedro Pascal) in order to survive.
Can she make it off-planet?
Starring Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher, Prospect is a small-scale sci fi story about people scrapping by in the future.
This is not a great movie, but in its small-scale, home-made evocation of the future, it is something to be appreciated.
The movie drops you right in the middle of the action with no exposition.
We are expected to work out the world purely from context, and not even the characters’ language helps: they throw around future lingo with no characters asking for explanation, or clarification from the characters, spouting said techno-babble.
It could be frustrating, but the story is so simple, and the stakes are established so clearly, that you do not need more specifics.
While there is a little gunplay, a lot of the movie’s action is negotiation between different groups of people bartering over limited resources.
The future seems to be a desperate place: despite being a child, Cee has spent her life being trained by her father in survival skills. It is clear early on that he is trying to prepare her for a world without him, which adds an air of fatalism to the movie from the beginning.
The film’s production design feels inspired by the used future aesthetic of seventies scifi, not in look but in inspiration. From what I have read, the filmmakers had a diverse group of designers who had never worked on a movie to build the costumes and props.
As Cee, Thatcher is terrific - this is a largely silent movie, and so much rests on her reactions, and she carries the movie on her shoulders.
Pedro Pascal is fine as her reluctant ally - he is doing a voice which feels a touch too big for the style of the movie. One problem I have is that there is not enough tension - he frankly comes off as too inherently nice. It feels like the filmmakers wanted the character to be a little more ambiguous.
The film sags slightly in the middle, and it has some pacing issues. But overall, it is worth seeking out.
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