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15th March 2024
“I go where you go. OK spaceman?”
I’ll start as I mean to go on by dividing the hardy souls who read my film reviews by stating that Adam Sandler is far, far better in “serious” or dramatic roles than he is in any of his more comedic films. Now that I’ve raised the hackles on some of you and hopefully received a nod or two of approval from the renegades among you, let me present to you the evidence of two bona fide masterful dramatic performances in the Paul Thomas Anderson directed masterpiece “Punch Drunk Love” from 2002 (which is essential viewing) as is the 2019 crime drama directed by the Safdie Brothers, “Uncut Gems”. Two further performances in the Noah Baumbach directed “The Meyerowitz Stories” in 2017 and Jeremiah Zagar’s “Hustle” from 2022 should also be entered into evidence for Sandler’s incredible versatility in more dramatic movies and now here in “Spaceman” we have a fifth.
Directed by Swedish all around music, television and cinema artist Johan Renck in his second all-time big screen outing and based upon the 2017 novel “Spaceman of Bohemia” by Jaroslav Kalfař, the simple premise for an incredibly difficult to fully pinpoint and comprehend film is:
“Jakub Procházka” (Adam Sandler) is 6 months into a year long space mission to collect samples from a purple/reddish coloured cloud known as “Chopra” which blights the earthly sky back home where he’s a national and world hero yet adrift from his heavily pregnant wife Lenka Procházka (Carey Mulligan). Now just 7 days away from reaching this cloud we quickly see that the fresh faced Czech astronaut in his launch photo pinned on a noticeboard inside his ship is anything but and in his place is a “skinny human” and a bearded, tired and haggard looking man unable to sleep, suffering nightmares when he does and when awake, hallucinations follow him everywhere within his David Bowie “tin can”. During a live broadcast to the world as he approaches the cloud a school child asks if he’s the “loneliest man in the world” to which Jakub responds that he isn’t and fortified by regular communications with his wife and “Peter” (Kunal Nayyar) at Czech Mission Control, he’s excitedly approaching the end of his mission before the 6 month journey home.
There’s a HUGE spoiler you won’t read here, but suffice to say we as the audience are propelled constantly back and forth from an astronaut lost in his own thoughts as well as deep space and a faraway earth he left behind, and a film of existential angst, deep regret, perhaps the wasting of a life or certainly the opportunity of one because of a desire for professional success and the happiness and fulfilment right in front of him/us that we never notice until it’s gone.
“Spaceman” is a film open and ripe for interpretation, from selfish desires through an unending raft of human emotions, memories, the actual remembering of memories, what it means to be human and part of a larger human family as well as the largest of all existential musings on the oneness of the universe, a universal all if you will, and should any of these touchstones strike a chord within you, you might, just might, find yourself wiping away a rogue tear or two come the film’s final frames.
There are obvious links to any space film you care to mention but the one, of many, that I continually thought of during the 109 minute running time was 2009’s “Moon” directed by Duncan Jones. This debut film from 15 years ago is far better than “Spaceman” but each comes highly recommended to you in their own unique and endearing ways.
“Spaceman” also moonlights as chapter 3 whilst singing and dancing its way through pages 33–35 of my self-published book “Golden Sky”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.