I.S.S. (2024) Fancy watching the end of the world from outer space?
“We don’t talk politics on here. Up here, we’re all one”
“The creation of the International Space Station (ISS) served as a symbol of United States and Russian collaboration after the Cold War”
The ISS is used primarily as a research facility where the crew makes advancements in medicine, technology and space exploration”
“Today, both American Astronauts and Russian Cosmonauts are living aboard the ISS”
“The Soyuz rocket transports Astronauts from earth to the ISS”
From this opening crawl we dissolve to “Soyuz Rocket, Present Day” amid intense music and a shaking camera inside the rocket until, finally, the rocket leaves the earth’s atmosphere and a message from Mission Control of “Welcome to space care” for “Dr Kira Foster” (Ariana DeBose) and “Christian Campbell” (John Gallagher Jr) two American astronauts now experiencing the eerie quiet, peace and serenity of outer space all around them. We cut for the first time of many in the coming film from black and white (here inside the rocket) to full colour and the rocket slowly leaving earth behind on its approach to the International Space Station. Reassuring smiles abound between Kira and Christian, the latter of whom is holding a toy bear and present from one his two children as he beams with love for them despite a parental rift with their mother and a slight distance as work is once more taking him away from the family unit. As Christian continues with talk of the Russian cosmonauts being more methodical and always knocking on the connecting door to the ISS rather than their American colleagues more enthusiastic and simple approach of gleefully ripping open the connection between the docking rocket and the ISS, loud knocks are immediately heard and seconds later, they are welcomed aboard through enthusiastic claps, cheers and V for victory signs to both a black and white camera (Russian) and full colour (American) by American astronaut “Gordon Barrett” (John Messina) and his three Russian cosmonaut colleagues “Weronika Vetrov” (Masha Mashkova), “Nicholai Pulov” (Costa Ronin) and brother “Alexey Pulov” (Pilou Asbæk).
An immediate cut introduces us to the juxtaposition of life aboard the ISS and the green and blue ball of earth below as further cuts once more splice life inside the claustrophobic confines of the space station, again both in black and white and in colour, as Weronika (but more commonly known as “Nika”) introduces herself to Kira. 50 days into her mission, Nika is full of warming smiles for the second lady to join her aboard the ISS and among her warm welcome she’s keen to reinforce to Kira “the important thing is we stick together” as we quickly cut to Gordon now introducing both himself and then Kira to her cabin or “sleep station” and “glorified phone booth” as he warns the internet rarely works, acclimatisation is difficult but she’ll “get used to it” and “You hear that hum and everything is OK” and if she doesn’t, panic! Everything is shared here on the ISS he continues before “we’re happy you’re here” and with Kira wanting to settle into her work station, she requests time to settle in. As Gordon departs with a friendly smile, Kira is seen releasing three mice into a cage and as they float in zero gravity, fellow scientist Nicholai awkwardly introduces himself through Russian and broken English. Kira admits to being in awe of his previously published scientific theses but there’s clearly a barrier between them and not just one of language as Nicholai clearly doesn’t want the competition of a fellow scientist now on board and as the scene closes, we see Nicholai opening the cage to the floating mice and watching them avidly.
We cut to a busy gym and multi purpose area aboard the ISS with Alexey on a running machine and Christian beginning his own experiments and as he calls them “playing with fire” as Gordon teases Alexey as to their ongoing game of chess with Alexey retorting with a smile and calling Gordon “Captain Bubbles”. A further cut now takes us to the cramped confines of the dining area with all six astronauts and cosmonauts sitting around a small table and a chessboard is prominently on display affixed to the wall. As “Winds of Change” by The Scorpions plays on the ship’s music system, all three cosmonauts cannot hide their delight as they each begin singing along, however Gordon makes an inappropriate and off hand comment that raises the ire of Alexey in particular who retorts how much the song means to him and his colleagues and the “end of a bad life” before his brother reiterates “We don’t talk politics on here” and “up here, we’re all one”. The first signs of tension appears within the group as Christian states he doesn’t talk about Israel or Syria and “I don’t talk about my service” before Gordon apologises to Alexey and his two cosmonaut colleagues for his thoughtless, if joking, remarks, and as the two now fist bump as a mark of ongoing friendship, Christian produces presents for everyone around the table as Nicholai replies in kind with a bottle of vodka. Before he can advise Kira as to the most appropriate method of opening the bottle in space she speeds ahead, sending alcoholic bubbles of vodka in the air around the table and amid much laughter and hilarity, each astronaut and cosmonaut scramble to catch these precious alcoholic liquid bubbles in their mouths. With serenity and peace restored around the table, Nika in particular, then joined by both Nicholai and Alexey, excitedly suggest they show the two newest members of the crew the “Cupola” or a literal window on the world, and the earth below them…
So there you have the opening 15 minutes to I.S.S. and a film long on my “watch list” and which I finally watched, along with my son, on a recent rainy Saturday afternoon in middle England. I have only one gripe for a film that I enjoyed immensely but which if I alluded to the issue I have with the film would spoil the plot entirely and that’s never my intention. I simply hope the above 15 minute teaser appraisal whets your appetite to search this out sometime as contrived plot gripe or not, I found this to be a hugely enjoyable romp among the stars. Before watching, I remarked to my son that I’d eyed this film for a while based wholly on the film poster and my fascination for all things space movies as I love the somewhat unpredictability of what may or may not happen, the eerie sounds of silence and the escapism into a world of largely nothingness where quixotically you can’t escape! All these boxes were ticked and whilst I.S.S. will never rank alongside Moon or Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gravity or the film every space film aspires to be, Alien, it’s well worth 96 minutes of your time sometime.
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.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon