Spaceman: A Film That Promises So Much More, But Doesn't Deliver

Spaceman is a new SciFi film, starring Adam Sandler (Jakub Prochazka), about an astronaut who has left behind his pregnant partner Lenka (Carey Mulligan), to take a year long space odyssey to study a strange phenomena in the sky called the “Chopra cloud”,

Though I believe this film had good intentions of being something mind blowing, we instead get served up uninspiring, already done subjects and a protagonist who didn’t need a space odyssey to get the answers he needed.

On the rocks

Jakub is an ordinary self centered man who has spent most of his life trying to recover from his abusive father, and running away from his wife Lenka, and her love for him.

Things were already on the rocks for Jakub and Lenka before he goes on this isolative trip, so the trip becomes an even greater wedge between them. Jakub is very self involved and focuses only on what he is currently doing, whilst ignoring and taking for granted the supposed love of his life.

When the film opens, we see Lenka send a message to Jakub in space regarding the fact that she has decided to leave him, because she can no longer wait for him to get his head out of his ass. As the film continues, we see that this trip is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Mission Control won’t allow him to see this message as they don’t want to ruin the mission nor Jakub’s already deteriorating mental health, so they make a plea to Lenka to communicate with Jakub as though she is still waiting for him.

Lenka refuses and moves back with her mother.

Skinny human

Netflix

While on his journey, Jakub meets an ancient alien, a giant space spider later known as Hanus (Paul Dano). Hanus apparently comes to Jakub as he is floating through space. He finds Jakub interesting for some reason, and decides to board his ship to study him up close.

Though he knows that Jakub is a human, he apparently doesn’t know anything about humans, though he has the power to access Jakub’s thoughts, feelings and his past. As the film progresses, Hanus becomes a mentor and a friend to Jakub within space’s cold, isolative blackness.

Hanus condemns and forces Jakub to confront his past behavior, giving him the opportunity to change his ways for a chance at redemption with Lenka.

in all honesty…

Spaceman is a well dressed, fantastical idea that fizzles out horribly by the end.

There were so many moments missed to show more depth, perspective, soul growth, personal growth, and the reasons why this couple and the protagonist are special enough to deserve a story about them. It’s an utter failure in character development, background and story telling.

It felt like a very expensive way to tell a yet another story about why cishet men believe that they can be wholly self centered, treat a woman like crap, and still believe they deserve another chance for forgiveness. The worst part is cishet men’s ability to believe that a woman and their kids should wait around for them. It’s a fantasy that has been woven into the fabric of storytelling for centuries.

We have seen countless stories in the past with the same themes, from The Godfather’s, Scorsese’s mob films, to Interstellar, with the message that no matter how self centered, narcissistic, or mentally ill a cishet man is, their families and their wives should accept all kinds of abuse, abandonment, emotional and mental gaslighting, sexism and second classism to “stick with their man”.

They weren’t even able to show us why Jakub deserves a second chance to begin with.

Netflix

It’s also extremely far fetched that any space research facility is going to invest in someone close to their sixties, to enter into the rigors of space travel for a mission that is so important for them, for a week, let alone a year. At the same time we are meant to believe that a woman twenty years his junior is going to wait for him, when the relationship shown hasn’t been anything special to begin with.

Hanus is also an alien species that has been around from the beginning of time, who knows what humans are, has special empathic abilities, but doesn’t know anything about them or how they work. It is also drawn in by Jakub, who also isn’t really anything special in character. There is no way that a being who has lived since the beginning of time doesn’t know about humans and everything else already.

By the end it becomes clear that this alien, only has the most basic of truths to share with Jakub and helps him come to a conclusion that could’ve easily been drawn through some lesser happenings on Earth. If it takes six months in space and an alien to make Jakub come to the conclusion that he’s been an idiot, why is the story centered on him?

I was really hoping for something mind blowing at the end for all of the things that Jakub goes through, but even an ancient space spider turns out to be something too close to humanity to be believed as a wise, all knowing being.

Hanus even becomes angry and threatening at one point, which would happen only if he was living with duality, and lived within the confines of unawakened humanity, with a life spent focusing only on the tiny, individualistic bubbles of life in front of them.

The filmmakers likened Hanus to be something of a Yoda character from Star Wars, yet Yoda, who was only 900 years old, knew way more about spirituality and life truths than Hanus. Yoda’s metaphorical knowledge still holds true today.

Netflix

Mulligan, who I love in almost everything, had nothing to work with in Lenka’s character whatsoever. Even the reasons presented of why Lenka loves Jakub and sticks by him aren’t enough to warrant an actor of her caliber. The only reason I heard uttered from Lenka’s mouth through the whole film, about why their relationship is special was a really good first kiss.

The musical score, space design and Dano’s performance created a beautiful symphony of ethereal peace throughout the film, there are just far too many unanswered questions, underdeveloped characters with nothing special about them, and super far fetched situations for this film to work.