"Uncut Gems"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Netflix just started streaming the critically-acclaimed “Uncut Gems”—way ahead of normal schedule, too. What a gift. Great news, right!?

Well, let me ask: Do you like anxiety? Not like action-thriller anxiety. More like family-shouting-at-Thanksgiving anxiety. Is that your cup of tea? Not mine. Not right now. I’m working to keep my own COVID-and-world-disaster-and-annoying-kids-stuck-at-home heart attacks at bay. I’m not eager to watch someone else’s coronary for two-plus hours.

If you, on the other hand, are more worried that your blood pressure is needlessly low, thank Netflix, because they’re now streaming your cure.

Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) is a jewelry shop owner and a gambling addict. He sells super high end stuff, then immediately bets the profits on sports. He routinely replaces a lot of cash with a lot of debt. And upset creditors. And an estranged wife (also, a moody girlfriend). He’s kind of like King Midas in reverse, except worse—surely he’d rather have ended up with an innocuous pile of straw.

Ratner’s luck seems to turn around when a much anticipated package arrives at his shop—an extremely rare, extremely big, extremely valuable Ethiopian black opal that he ordered. It is worth a fortune—maybe as much as $1 million.

Right around the same time, Boston Celtics superstar Kevin Garnett walks into his shop. Ratner is so excited about the opal and Garnett, and Garnett and the opal, that he can’t resist bringing the precious gem out. Garnett is transfixed. He wants it!

Ratner says no—he’s planning to sell it at auction. But Garnett begs Ratner to let him at least borrow the opal for the night. He thinks the gem is lucky, and he has a big playoff game coming up. Ratner reluctantly agrees, taking Garnett’s championship ring as collateral.

Ratner then pawns the ring and bets the money on Garnett and the Celtics to have a big game. Same old same old—though this time the stakes are considerably higher (both literally and figuratively).

Luckily, Ratner wins big. Or maybe not. Does he? Well, it’s complicated. And it’s cycles of excitement, confusion, anger, despair, relief, hope, excitement, confusion … Ratner scrambles to clean up his own messes while simultaneously creating more. He’s like the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike, except he is the one creating the holes and it’s more holes than he has fingers and toes to plug.

Hence the anxiety.

“Uncut Gems” is exhausting. It is also well acted, written, and composed. And while you might not exactly be hungry for more stress (I wasn’t), this movie and its emotional punch are also easier to get nowadays. Anxiety is familiar. Especially if you’re vulnerable. Especially if you’ve got your own issues. And especially if you feel like you live in a system that only eggs on the worst in us all.

Ratner has issues. He’s imperfect. He’s a gambling addict, impulsive, prone to anger, unfaithful, vain, and greedy. But he also tries to make things better. He tries to fix things. Unfortunately he lives in a world—the same one we live in—that lures him into risk with the thought that things could be better only to crush him with its own unrelenting, voracious greed. Ratner is annoying, but human. And while tragedy might not feel like a very appealing genre right now, it is, at the same time, undeniably a propos.

"The Vast of Night"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

The aim of this review, and the aim of that which the review is about, is escape (which feels nice right now, even if only for an evening). Escape to something a little less real. Escape to something strange, eerie, distant, yet also warm, inviting, and nostalgic.

“The Vast of Night” is a great escape. Think “The Twilight Zone”. Think “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Think “The War of the Worlds”. “The Vast of Night”, which was on limited release last year and is just now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a low-budget sci-fi mystery that takes place in New Mexico in the 1950s.

The movie begins with a Twilight-Zone-esque opening—“The Paradox Theatre Hour”—on a crackling old TV. Which sets the stage for a kind of retro otherworldliness—a dead serious but seriously heartwarming sense of mystery and wonder and a little fear and scandal and apprehension. Other scenes throughout the movie also appear on this crackly ‘50s TV set with poor reception, reminding us how to feel, what mood to be in, but also that this story is strange, distant, manipulated, mediated, fabricated, not totally real.

The story follows high schoolers Fay Crocker (Sierra McCormick) and Everett Sloan (Jake Horowitz). Crocker is a switchboard operator. Sloan hosts a local radio show. They, like everyone else in this movie, like to tell tales to each other—some long, some short, always speculative, and, if possible, recorded.

On the night of “the disturbance” almost the whole town is at a local basketball game. Even the game, which must have been the height of commonplace for the townsfolk, has an eerie aura to it. It plays out in this big, old hanger, the overhead lights give off an orange florescent glow, and the dust particles wafting through the air figure as a kind of ether that holds the big multi-personal hoard together like the teeming vesicles of an alien species.

On the outside, at their respective headsets, Crocker and Sloan hear some strange noise over the radio. It’s some kind of interference. At her switchboard, Crocker gets some unusual calls—maybe disturbing, maybe not. Then Sloan gets a curious call into his radio show. The caller is older, and tells of a time when he was with the U.S. military, and they brought him out into the middle of nowhere to something super secret that they weren’t allowed to say anything about. He doesn’t have all the details, though he notes that he and his fellow military-grade peons felt strange, noxious side effects from their encounter those many years ago.

Sloan’s caller is talking now, he says, first because he is old and has nothing to lose, and, second, because the sound Sloan played for him over the radio—that strange noise he and Crocker heard earlier—is exactly the sound he heard while on his mysterious mission decades ago.

All of this is eerie, alien. Yet the plot is nothing new. “There’s something in the sky” is the line. And all of the stylistic elements of this old-school sci-fi drama are utterly genre-affirming. Even the upbeat ‘50s style is unrepentantly old fashioned.

And yet “The Vast of Night” is fresh, exciting, captivating. You already know what it’s about, yet you can’t look away. The feel of this movie—with the warm colors, town-traversing tracking shots, period lingo, eerie score, and subtle distancing techniques—is so rich, atmospheric, quirky, and yet somehow also quaint and reassuring.

We’re so used to being bludgeoned with hyper realism. We’re primed to scoff at anything—sci-fi or not—that doesn’t look exactly like what we’d expect it to if it plopped down into one of our backyards right now. But what “The Vast of Night” insists, and what it reminds us was so wonderfully effective about old TV shows and movies like “The Twilight Zone” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, is that not everything turns out exactly like we’d expect. Some events, whether supernatural or extraterrestrial or just unfamiliar, are, or would be, alien, confusing, weird, otherworldly, and maybe also a little bit magical.

“The Vast of Night” is a transportation device—part time machine, part alien spacecraft. And I’ll take this ride anytime.

"Onward"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

“Long ago, the world was full of wonder. It was adventurous. There was magic.”

Then came light bulbs. Those were easier. So people stopped with the magic, moved to the suburbs, and switched on their TVs for wonder and adventure.

In Pixar’s “Onward”, there are still unicorns, elves, centaurs, and pixies. It’s just that they don’t act like it. They act like boring, ordinary things—like dogs and cats, who pick through the trash, or like middle-class humans with mortgages and dead-end jobs. The really out-there ones get motorcycles.

The two main characters are elves, and they’re brothers. The younger one is Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland)—a meek, smallish teenager who has all sorts of (written-down) plans to become braver, stronger, and more assertive.

The older brother is Barley Lightfoot (Chris Pratt). He’s kinda embarrassing. He’s way into magic and board games and other Dungeons-and-Dragons-type stuff. He’s out of school and his only direction seems to be nerd-ward.

Both of these kids could use some guidance. But unfortunately they’re down one parent, because their dad got sick and died when Barley was young and their mom (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was pregnant with Ian. So Ian never met his dad, and Barley says he only has three memories of him (though it turns out there were four—the fourth being when Barley declined to go into the hospital room to say goodbye to his wire- and tube-suffused dad).

The family has moved forward since then, but not really onward.

Then they get a jolt from the past. Ian and Barley’s dad left them a gift to be opened once they’re both sixteen. It’s a wizard’s staff—a relic of long ago, when the world was full of wonder—together with instructions on how to do a spell. If done correctly, the spell will give the boys what they sorely desire: their dad. For one day and one day only, the spell will bring their dad back to life.

This gives Ian ideas. And plans. He’s got a list. He’s going to play catch with his dad, laugh with him, tell him about his whole life, his dad is going to teach him how to drive, and they’re going to have plenty of heart-to-heart chats.

But, oh no! They botch the spell! It goes haywire halfway through and they only get the bottom half of their dad out—his legs up to his waste, clad in khakis and brown leather dad shoes. Their half-dad can walk, but he can’t see his sons—he doesn’t have eyes, after all. Nor can he hear them (no ears) or talk to them (no mouth). Ian and Barley must finish the spell to get their whole dad back. But to do so, they’ve got to find a rare Phoenix gem.

It’s a quest! Ian has the magical talent, so he wields the wizard’s staff. Barley has the knowledge—all that gamer stuff paid off—so he’s the guide. But the clock is ticking—remember, the spell only works for 24 hours. So time is running out on their magical and ever-so-desperately-longed-for reunion.

If you’re tearing up just thinking about the premise of this movie, well, yeah, that’s about right. “Onward” doesn’t quite have the magic of other Pixar greats (oh, the irony). But it’s goofy, fun, and overall a solid movie. And, oh, in the end, and at a few other points, does it pack an emotional punch.

Pixar has the market cornered on sadness. I don’t mean cheesy, bawling-for-no-good-reason sadness—Lifetime seems to have that one figured out. And I don’t mean emotionally manipulative sadness or punch you in the stomach and leave you in the gutter sadness either.

I mean beautiful sadness. Meaningful sadness. Important sadness. I mean sadness like in “Up”, when Mr. Fredrickson reads a note from his dear Ellie, who passed away too early, telling him to find a new adventure. I mean sadness like in “Inside Out”, when Riley’s terrible longing for her old home draws her into the sympathetic arms of her loving parents. I mean sadness like in “Toy Story 4”, when Woody says goodbye.

Really, it’s “Inside Out” that captures this sadness most abstractly. The various little parts of Riley’s mind—joy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, etc.—help her cope with life. Yet it’s unclear what function sadness serves. It’s not until later in the movie, when we see how sadness breaks Riley down, makes her feel like all is not well, makes her need others, makes her seek out others, togetherness, and the loving embrace of those most dear to her, that we begin to get it. Sadness can bring joy, or it can mix in with joy to make something entirely different—not always as pleasant, to be sure, but every bit as meaningful.

“Onward” channels that sadness too. And, whether or not “Onward” is as good as the best Pixar movies (it’s not), any movie that can tap into this beautiful, important sadness, even for a few moments, has earned its keep.

"Marriage Story"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Hollywood likes making movies about it itself. About the woes of its stars. About how they’ve got all sorts of totally relatable normal-person problems. But also about how they’re transcendent—tortured, brilliant, thoughtful, flawed like the Greek gods were flawed, tragic, powerful, and, in the end, too big for this world. Hollywood likes making movies like this. And then they pat themselves on the back and give golden statues to each other for how awesome they are.

How unbearable. Or so I say.

“Marriage Story” is about the crumbling marriage of Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson). Charlie is a successful theater director in New York. Nicole is a successful actress, previously in New York, now in L.A. They once shared their dreams, aspirations, hopes, and struggles with each other. They had chemistry too. And a kid. But they’ve since drifted apart.

At first they aim for an amicable split. Neither wants to crush the other, and they agree that they should share time with their son, Henry (Azhy Robertson). They even talk about getting neighboring apartments in New York and still being friends.

I guess the turning point, though, is when Nicole retains high-powered divorce lawyer, Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern). Nora Fanshaw doesn’t do amicable, crush-free splits. She says she does. She smiles and talks and coos and soothes like she does. But the whole point of signing up with Nora is to win. Nicole still isn’t exactly all about winning at this point. But, hey, why not?

Charlie is dumbstruck. He thought they were going to do this the easy way. He thought, no lawyers. He thought they were going to stay friends—that they’d still see each other, that he’d see even Nicole’s family from time to time, and that things would be more-or-less the same except that they could each go out and play as they wish.

Not anymore. At first, Nora seems to be playing nice, so Charlie settles on a cheaper, second-rate lawyer, Bert Spitz (Alan Alda). But once he realizes that Nora’s compassionate, totally rad, totally woke, totally reasonable demeanor is just a means to gradually obtain unconditional surrender, Charlie lawyers up for real with pit bull, Jay Marotta (Ray Liotta).

Then things get messy. And expensive. And embarrassing. Accusations fly, tall tales are told, harms are exaggerated. It’s a blood bath.

Charlie and Nicole, who were once totally amicable, start to get into the act too (they’re good at such things, after all). They start to internalize this phony anger and injustice. They stroke their egos and stoke their self-importance, buying into the idea that the other was the only thing holding them back, and is now the only thing holding them back, from … I don’t know what. Happiness? Further stardom? More money?

Charlie moans that he was a hot young director in his twenties in New York and could have had unending sexual conquests if it weren’t for Nicole. (Cry me a river.) Nicole groans that, upon further reflection, she would have liked to leave their exciting life in New York for extended jaunts in L.A. … if only Charlie would have let her. (Boo hoo.)

Sorry if I’m not sympathetic. I get that movie stars and Broadway directors are people too. And I get that they feel pain and have problems. But it’s hard (for me, at least) to get too invested in these bored rich-person problems. Like, O.K. Charlie, you could have been sleeping around. Good for you. And wow, Nicole, it must have been so tough to have only one home that 95% of the population can’t afford.

There is a fine line between self-awareness/self-realization and self-indulgence. It’s fine, even good, to reflect on one’s desires, preferences, and goals, and to try one’s best to soar to new heights. But at a certain point it’s like, O.K., shut up and get back to reality now.

There are various tender, authentic, even compelling moments in “Marriage Story”. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are, of course, magnetic. And the Woody-Allen-esque writing is crisp and engaging. The movie is at its best when the context kind of fades out and it seems like a normal family story—with real-life heartbreaks, challenges, and disappointments.

Which isn’t to imply that famous people can’t really be disappointed, challenged, or heart broken. It’s just that this Oscar-nominated marriage story is largely unrecognizable (and maybe should be unrecognizable) for most of us. Yes, divorce is very, very real for many, many of us. As are custody battles, court hearings, child support, and the like. But all this hand wringing over time tragically lost by golden gods of the stage and screen—give me a break.

"A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Right at the beginning of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”, we get a reminder of how dorky, hokey, cheesy and incredibly slow Mr. Rogers (played by Tom Hanks in this movie) was. Yes, yes, he was also tender, kind, and totally wonderful (more on that below). But, man, was he slow.

And not at all fancy. The show was half Mr. Rogers putting on/taking off clothes while singing some not-totally-appealing song, half him playing with ratty old puppets. No effects, no gimmicks, no production value.

So then why was everyone drawn to him? Why did kids tune in to his show so religiously for so long (895 episodes!)?

That’s what investigative reporter Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) of Esquire Magazine wants to know in this movie, which is based on a true story. Vogel is not sure he buys Rogers’ whole absurdly wholesome, outrageously good persona. Unlike Rogers, Vogel isn’t a warm and fuzzy type. Or, as another character put it, Vogel is not exactly a “lover of humanity”.

And Vogel has other issues. He is angry at his dad, Jerry (Chris Cooper), for abandoning their family while his mom was on her death bed. He is worried that he is going to be a bad father too. And the only thing he seems to know how to do is work, work, work. He doesn’t like this about himself. He doesn’t want it. But he can’t help it. He calls himself “broken.”

So maybe Vogel is an unusual choice to do a piece about the beloved, kindhearted Mr. Rogers.

But Mr. Rogers doesn’t see it that way. Rogers wants to talk to Vogel. He is enthusiastic about it. The first time he talks to Vogel on the phone, Rogers asks, in his characteristically slow, calm, sweet tone of voice, “Do you know what is the most important thing to me in the whole world right now?” He answers, “To be talking with Lloyd Vogel on the phone.”

Over the course of several meetings, Vogel tries to ask probing, difficult questions. But, more often than not, it is Rogers who ends up digging deeply into Vogel. Rogers wants to know about Vogel’s family, his background, what he likes, what’s bothering him. As a result, Vogel can’t get very far with his intended exposé.

Still, he tries. Vogel asks Rogers if it is a burden to always be dealing with other people’s problems. He asks whether Rogers’ children have found it difficult. He tries to tease apart Mr. Rogers, the character, from Fred Rogers, the person. Mr. Rogers doesn’t understand. He just wants to know about Vogel’s childhood stuffed rabbit.

Why? Why does he want to know about that? Why does he care?

Well, that’s just it—that’s the answer: He cares. He cares about Vogel. He cares about the kids that he meets and that tune into his show. He cares about them desperately.

But why? Why does he care about them? How could he care about them—people who, like Vogel, are cold, mean or even “broken”?

Again, Mr. Rogers sees it differently. In a 2002 commencement address at Dartmouth, Rogers says, “It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourished our souls. It’s the knowing that … the bedrock of our lives from which we make our choices is very good stuff.”

He then adds that what this means is that, “You don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you.”

Why does Rogers listen? What does he want to know about Vogel’s childhood stuffed animal, as well as his family, he past, his pains, his heartache? Because he cares about Vogel. Why does he care? Because, according to Mr. Rogers, Vogel is valuable. Just the way he is. That’s it. Not because he’s a good writer. Not because he works at Esquire. Not because he has something interesting or important or sensational to do or say. For Mr. Rogers, it’s way simpler than that. It’s because Vogel is exactly who is his, and that’s valuable.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is, like Mr. Rogers’ show, cinematically unremarkable. There’s nothing fancy about it. Yes, Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys do a fine job. And, sure, the movie is well composed in some other ways. But it is not sensational because of its plot, effects, lighting, score, etc.

What makes this movie sensational is Mr. Rogers himself and what he was able to bring to people’s lives aside from all the dorky outfits, worn out puppets, and cheesy jingles. Day-in, day-out, for over 30 years, he asked, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” And he really meant it. What could be more sensational than that?

"The Lighthouse"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

There are all sorts of ways to scare someone. You could jump out at them. You could gross them out. You could make them feel unsafe. Or you could give them an itchy, eerie, creepy feeling—make it a skin-crawling spook fest.

Or you could strip away all that—all the gore, the goons and ghosts and goblins; the fog and cobwebs and blood—and do something more basic, more primal. You could give them a snapshot of people in isolation. Of the inherent frailty of the human mind. Of what it is like to be unhappy, lonely, guilty, angry, resentful. All you have to do, really, is show them what it is like to be a human when things aren’t going so well.

That’s “The Lighthouse.” It’s two men getting stuck at a lighthouse. That pretty much sums up this move. Just two grumpy, crusty, sailor-looking dudes, who’ve got no money or education or dentists (apparently), and who can’t really stand each other, get stranded on a remote little lighthouse island somewhere in the cold, blustery New England sea.

And yes, absolutely, this is a horror movie.

The first crusty dude—the younger of the two—is Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson). He arrives on the island to make a little money as an assistant operating a lighthouse for four weeks. That’s the contract. Winslow isn’t wedded to the sea or anything. He just needs some cash to set himself up when he goes home.

The second crusty dude—an old salt if there ever was one—is Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe). He’s straight from Moby Dick. When not barking orders, guzzling liquor, and farting, he tells poetic tales and recites oceanic mythology in a thick, lyrical Irish accent. He has wild, bushy hair, a full beard, a limp, and a ship tattooed on his chest.

Right from the get-go, things suck. Particularly for Winslow. Although he is not too much of a talker, he seems to have hoped for a more-or-less congenial four weeks sharing duties at the lighthouse. No such luck. Wake immediately makes it clear that he’s in charge, that he’s not to be questioned, and that Winslow is to do all of the menial tasks—real grunt work—while he looks after the lantern atop the lighthouse.

So Winslow carts coal, clears out the (absolutely disgusting) cistern, patches the roof, oils the gears, and takes out the bed pans. Then Wake barks more orders, criticizes Winslow, and farts. Over and over. Day in, day out.

Then things get weird (as if they weren’t already). Winslow starts having these crazy dreams that include, among other things, dead bodies, logs, and a super creepy mermaid. And Wake, for his part, has some kind of mystical regard for the lighthouse lantern. God only knows what he’s doing up there while on watch.

Things get even weirder. The line between reality and … well, I don’t know … dreams? Hallucinations? Mere thought? At any rate, it all becomes very blurry. They’re going crazy, each in their own way. It’s kind of like “The Shining,” nautical edition. And at no point in the movie does it feel like things are going to end any better for Winslow and Wake.

Part of that feeling has to do with a pounding fog horn that batters your psyche like relentless waves harassing the seashore. I’m not sure whether the fog horn is supposed to be coming from the lighthouse or passing ships, but, at any rate, it’s a super effective way to communicate pure, inescapable doom.

The rest of the sound editing in “The Lighthouse” is equally effective. As is the bleak, harsh black-and-white cinematography. Just in general, the look and feel of this movie is as striking as it is a perfect fit for what is going on in the movie. It’s beautifully done—and horrific.

“The Lighthouse” is, like the lives of the island’s two inhabitants, elemental. It doesn’t get its “horror” designation via anything too fancy, or jumpy, or gory. It’s more basic—images, facial expressions, thoughts, and feelings that, in other context, might not be that scary. But, on that lonesome rock, they chill to the bone.

Director Robert Eggers pulls off a real feat of storytelling. He taps into the deepest human anxieties and fears without any of the frills. And the other major players in this film also do a fantastic job. The actors—all two of them—are great.

“The Lighthouse” is, if nothing else, a cinematic achievement. It is scary, unsettling, disturbing, shocking, bewildering, gripping—and all with relatively simple tools. It doesn’t take a blood-soaked, ghoul-infested fright fest. Just two dudes stuck at a lighthouse.

"Ad Astra"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Major Roy McBride of the United States Space Command is a cool customer. He's got ice in his veins. Strap him to a rocket, knock him off his footing thousands of feet in the air, shoot at him, yell at him, punch him, bite him, claw at him—he won't blink. One of McBride's claims to fame is that his heart rate has never gone above 80. I just took my pulse while writing this review. 83.

Yup, he’s cool as a cucumber.

Even so, the mission he’s given in "Ad Astra" would flap even the most unflappable of heart rates. You see, McBride's second claim to fame—besides having the most even keel in the shipyard—is that his dad, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), was a super famous astronaut/space explorer. Unfortunately, his dad's most famous mission ended in apparent disaster. It was called “The Lima Project” and the mission was to travel all the way to Neptune in the search of extra-terrestrial life. But when the Lima Project suddenly lost contact with mission control, everyone assumed the worst.

Indeed, they—including Roy, who, to be honest, was straight up abandoned by his father—assumed the worst for the next 30 years. Until, that is, super destructive cosmic rays started being emitted from around Neptune. Then, who knows? The Space Command top brass think it's McBride Sr. They think he's still alive, maybe disgruntled, and is sending the angry, civilization-threatening rays toward Earth as some kind of revenge or attack or something.

That's where McBride Jr. comes in. They want him to travel to Mars, where they can send a signal to Neptune, to try to get in contact with his dad. He placidly accepts the mission in the same way you or I would agree to pass the ketchup. 

But cracks in his visage begin to emerge. It's not the travel, first to the moon then on to Mars. Nor is it the space combat, terrifying mayday calls, or other near-misses. It's his dad. The man who abandoned him and his mother. The man who didn't care enough to give them a second thought. The man who he nonetheless loves and admires and in so many ways is just like. That's who and what is breaking him down, causing him to doubt and worry and rage, and finally, for the first time, to unveil his humanity.

Just a little bit. Roy McBride demeanor is still mostly calm, his affect flat. And it’s the same with the movie. It is intentionally subdued. It has the serenity of the steadiest of astronauts. Epic, cosmic scenery is accompanied by stillness, quiet. Dramatic action sequences are dulled by an understated score. Dead bodies are floated out into space as a matter of course. McBride presses a button, pulls a lever, does his duty.

However, like McBride, while the film is calm, even remote, it is also, importantly, not emotionless. Quite the opposite. In movies like this, epic scenes from space—as a character speeds past Jupiter or enters Mars’ atmosphere—are typically accompanied by dramatic, soaring music, or a church organ witnessing to the grandiosity of the galactic cathedral. But imagine floating nearby Neptune—cold, dark, vast, hauntingly blue—in utter, complete silence. Imagine what that would feel like. It would have to be otherworldly, surreal, lonely, and terrifying.

One of the things “Ad Astra” does so well, besides imagining and delivering on a well-composed vision of the future, is reveal the intense, powerful emotions that underlie McBride’s placid demeanor and, perhaps more to the point, his deep, dark depression.

“Ad Astra” could have benefited from more time to develop these subtleties—it could have been a miniseries, for example. Still, the film is an emotional accomplishment—a tribute to Pitt’s acting and James Gray’s directing. It’s not all rocket blasts, explosions, and fiery destruction. It’s cold, dark, icy, lonely space—the vast haunting, dwarfing unknown.