Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Eva Green, Zelie Boulant, Matt Dillon
Intro:
…does make one think very briefly about the gender inequalities of science and space travel but there isn’t enough substance here for a long-haul mission.
It’s a tough life being a woman in a man’s world. Well, that seems to be the main, if not entirely original, message of this drama about a woman becoming an astronaut. The film stars Eva Green who just about manages to anchor proceedings with an earnest performance, but one suspects that it won’t be a role that will be long remembered.
She plays Sarah Loreau, a thirty-something physicist who is selected to join the International Space Station in a mission named Proxima. Sarah has split from her husband Thomas (a sympathetic turn from prolific German actor Lars Eidinger), but they seem to be still on good terms. They have eight-year-old daughter Stella (Zelie Boulant), who has mild learning difficulties and who, despite being bright, is not thriving at school. She also seems to be developing separation anxiety about her mother’s imminent venture into space. Sarah is unintentionally fuelling this problem by being by turns clingy and then brusque.
The men in the space station team are led by Mike (Matt Dillon slightly dialling it in from outer space himself). There is a bit of tension around whether they will adapt to having a female in their crew, and we see Sarah pushing herself in training to prove herself to them and the authorities. Basically that, and the anxiety around the mother-daughter relationship, form the substance of the entire film.
At one point, Mike tells Sarah to chillax as there is no such thing as a perfect mother or a perfect astronaut. This sage advice, if followed, could more or less negate the whole film. There are some other elements that keep the film firmly on the launchpad rather than in lift-off.
Director Alice Winicour (Augustine) can’t quite decide how much to concentrate on the dynamics between Sarah and the crew (resulting underwritten roles), or how to get our sympathies for Sarah without making her a neurotic that needs a lot of (male) help to get her up to speed.
The film is vaguely feminist about celebrating the contribution of female astronauts (several real-life examples are featured under the credits). However, we still get three separate unnecessary scenes of Green showering. These glimpses of nudity don’t really seem to add to her character development. We certainly don’t get any parity with the male crew members in the ablution stakes, so we presume they do their astronaut showering off camera.
Proxima does make one think very briefly about the gender inequalities of science and space travel but there isn’t enough substance here for a long-haul mission. Houston we have a problem.
