Category:

Review

Duration: 9:53

47 views

2

"The Midnight Sky" (2020) directed by and starring George Clooney is a worse version of "Interstellar" (2014). That said, I still found myself emotionally moved by it and there are a few other things to love about it.

We follow a lonely scientist in the Arctic named Augustine (Clooney). Augustine has thrown away his life for the sake of human progress, but he has fallen ill and won't be around much longer. Augustine meets and takes care of Iris (Caoilinn Springall), a little girl who has been forgotten behind at his station by accident. We learn that Earth has become unhabitable and Augustine tries to prevent a space expedition from returning home to the doomed planet.

The Midnight Sky is very far from perfection, but there were still some things I greatly appreciated in it. The cast are excellent, and every emotional scene feels raw and genuine. The cinematography borderline carries the film, and it would not have been nearly as memorable or great without such great locations and shot taking. I greatly enjoyed Augustine's side of the story, and if the movie was entirely about him and his journey, then perhaps it could have been salvaged to be something greater.

Where The Midnight Sky fails is it's painful slow pace and lack of events happening. This is a meandering slice of life film for depressed astronauts basically. Many of the story's major beats are extremely predictable. I also expected this film to be a touch more intelligent than it was, as it can't even get the basics of logic and common sense down since they forget that you probably shouldn't be sending a pregnant woman on a space walk, or taking a little girl with you on a suicide mission with little to no food.

The Midnight Sky is trying to be profound, and it somewhat is. The main issue is that we've seen this exact concept executed better in past sci-fi films that everyone's seen so while I was able to somewhat enjoy it, it's not really a film I would whole heartedly recommend to you.

#rainynights #movies #themidnightsky