Ad Astra - Review Thread

I loved this movie so very much. Maybe my favourite of the year.

You haven’t watched In Fabric yet.

Still pissed I watched Rambo instead of this. Hopefully I can squeeze it in in the next couple weeks.

Is it more like interstellar or first man?

I'm a fan of sad science-fiction.

I'm in.


Nevermind.

I'll be getting Regal Unlimited soon and plan on seeing a lot of crap. Might as well see this too.

Finally, a voice of reason!

I tend to like hard science-fiction, but all the same I was not expecting to be so thoroughly moved by Ad Astra. The film is set in the near future and revolves around a dangerous anomaly coming from Neptune. Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is sent on a journey to investigate and stop the anomaly, a particularly fraught goal given his own father (Tommy Lee Jones), previously thought to be dead, appears to be alive and at the center of the chaos.

The core story here certainly interesting in its own right, and the film does an excellent job showing the danger and peril of the journey. There are a handful of set-pieces here which are highly intense and exciting. But it's on a metaphorical level that Ad Astra really finds its power. The central journey is clearly just as much one of character as it is physical, with Roy returning to his past in order to make sense of the person he has become. What follows is a moving story about masculinity and how emotionally distant behaviours become learned and repeated. The framing of Roy needing to keep his emotions in check for the sake of "the mission" is just as much about how toxic masculinity teaches men to repress their emotions and remain hardened pillars of logic at all times.

None of these themes are particularly subtle or hidden, but they are rendered with extraordinary power. In particularly, watching Roy's emotional vulnerability slowly grow hit me very hard. This is largely due to Brad Pitt, who gives one of his best performances here, perfectly balancing the stoic ideal of masculinity with emotional depths that become harder and harder to conceal. Nowhere is this delicate balance more apparent than in a pair of heart-wrenching scenes where Roy records messages for his father. Ad Astra has many of the ingredients of a big movie, and the production value is certainly there, but ultimately, the film is all built around Pitt, and he carries it. The other crucial factor relates to James Gray's direction, particularly his visual style. For all the production value on screen, Gray's style remains elegant and simple. His imagery is often stark and direct, stirring powerful emotions. As the film goes, Gray becomes more comfortable dipping his toes into weirder, more impressionistic visuals that make for an engrossing experience.

Honestly, I'm sort of struggling to put my feelings about Ad Astra into words. What I do know is that I was transfixed from the word go, that I was deeply moved by Brad Pitt's performance, that the film's imagery has stuck with me for days, and that the simple message about opening yourself up to others hit me with poignant force. This is, without a doubt, one of the best movies I've seen all year.

A+

Matthew McConaughey or Firefly?