Reel Opinions


Saturday, February 04, 2017

The Space Between Us

The Space Between Us calls out for a light touch.  It should be joyous, filled with hope, and maybe make us shed a tear by the end.  But the tone of the movie ends up being curiously quiet and muted, save for a few scenes that go for heavy-handed melodrama.  You can see the cast making the effort to bring life to this material up on the screen, but the leaden tone won't let them.  And when you have Gary Oldman in your cast, and he can't even manage to lift this thing up, you know you're in trouble.

The premise is intriguing.  It's about a young man named Gardner (Asa Butterfield) who was born during an expedition to colonize Mars.  His mother (Janet Montgomery) was the lead astronaut on the mission, and apparently told no one that she was pregnant.  She died in childbirth, and so Gardner has spent his entire life living on Mars, being raised by the other scientists on the mission.  The head of the program (Oldman) thought about bringing the child back to Earth after he was born, but apparently he may not be physically strong enough to survive the journey, or possibly not be able to survive in Earth's gravity.  So, Gardner has remained a secret of NASA in order to avoid bad publicity.  Now at age 16, Gardner wants to go to Earth so that he can visit his friend - a high school girl named Tulsa (Brit Robertson) whom he talks to regularly through on line communication.  Because apparently you can have flawless Internet video chats between Earth and Mars with no connection problems whatsoever.

It's not explained how Gardner and Tulsa met.  All we know is that she doesn't know his story.  She thinks he's a sick but wealthy boy who's locked away in a Park Avenue penthouse, never allowed to go outside.  They're both misunderstood.  He doesn't have anyone to talk to except for his robot butler, and she's bullied and doesn't feel like she fits in.  Gardner does have a mother figure on the Mars colony in one of the scientists working on the project (Carla Gugino), but he wants to make his way to Earth so that he can find out who his father was, and also so he can meet Tulsa in person.  There's the whole issue of the physical toll the journey could cause him, but he doesn't care.  He heads to Earth with a small team of scientists to look after him, but he quickly ditches them so that he can set off on his own to find Tulsa.  They find each other quick enough, she finds out the truth about where he comes from, a relationship kicks off, and before long the two are stealing various cars and wallets so that they can afford a cross country trek to track down Gardner's father.

I think a very good and uplifting movie could be made from this idea, but the movie never quite gels in any way.  We don't sense the connection we're supposed to from Gardner and Tulsa, who seem to fall in love more out of necessity of the screenplay rather than actual chemistry.  We also don't get to truly see Gardner truly discovering or learning about life on Earth, since most of these scenes are handled in music montages.  We do get hints that he is not well, as evidenced by the fact that his nose will bleed at random, so we know his time on Earth could be short.  But again, these moments don't have quite the impact they should have.  There's something just off and somewhat cold about the emotions this movie tries to create in us, and eventually it started to remind me of something...

Yes, The Space Between Us gave me a case of Deja Vu, and for once, it wasn't because I felt like I had seen the movie before.  Here I was watching a movie that was intended to be uplifting and heartfelt, but I couldn't detect a pulse behind the picture.  It made me think back on a movie I saw a couple months ago called Collateral Beauty.  That was the film with Will Smith playing a man grieving over the death of his young daughter, so his friends decide to hire some actors to play the physical manifestations of Death, Love and Time, so that he will think he's going crazy. (Yes, believe it or not, some Hollywood Executive heard that pitch, and thought it was a good idea.) That movie was supposed to be a tearjerker, but it was so cold and off in its emotions.  I kept on thinking back on that movie while I was watching this, and I wondered why.  Then the end credits came, and I got my answer.  They both share the same screenwriter, Allan Loeb.

Maybe Loeb is just not very good at expressing deep emotion in his screenplays, or maybe his scripts keep on getting misinterpreted by the directors.  I honestly don't know.  All I know is that after his last two movies, he just doesn't seem to possess the ability to create genuine emotion in his audience.  Even the moments here that are supposed to be uplifting or sad seem to clang with indifference.  This is a movie that should make our hearts soar, but instead, we just watch things unfold with no involvement.  Not even when Gardner learns the identity of his father does the movie break free and let the emotions soar.  Instead, it gets interrupted by some last minute plot developments, and a ludicrous climax that I won't spoil here.  Maybe if we felt something for these characters, we'd be able to go along with what happens.  But, the way things are, nothing matters.

The Space Between Us plays out like a failed Young Adult book adaptation, even though it's an original screenplay. (I actually sat through part of the credits to see if it was based on a romance book for tweens, because it sure felt like it could be.) It does share many of the same issues, such as underdeveloped characters, a romance that just doesn't work, and good actors who just can't rise above the material.  There's nothing wrong with this movie that a few more rewrites could have fixed.  I came to this movie wanting to feel something, and all I got was a cold experience.

2 comments

2 Comments:

  • You'd think the time lag in their conversations, as each waits 15 minutes for the radio signals of their inter-planetary skype chat to travel from Mars to Earth and back again, would make it obvious that Gardner isn't in a penthouse on Park Avenue.

    The only way this movie could work, would be if Gardner was born on the Moon. Or on the ISS, perhaps. Seems like not making him a secret, and merely the first born child on a new colony on Mars would have made the most sense, story-wise.

    By Blogger WhiskeyJack, at 11:47 PM  

  • Judging by your comment, I think you just put more thought into this film than the filmmakers did.

    By Blogger Ryan, at 8:06 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005
10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005
11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005
12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006
01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006
02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006
03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006
04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006
05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006
06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006
07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006
08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006
09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006
11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006
12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007
01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007
02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007
03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007
04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007
05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007
06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007
07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007
08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007
09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007
10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007
11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007
12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008
01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008
02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008
03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008
04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008
05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008
06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008
07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008
08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008
09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008
10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008
11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008
12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009
01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009
02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009
03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009
04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009
05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009
06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009
07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009
08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009
09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009
10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009
11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009
12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010
01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010
02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010
03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010
04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010
05/01/2010 - 06/01/2010
06/01/2010 - 07/01/2010
07/01/2010 - 08/01/2010
08/01/2010 - 09/01/2010
09/01/2010 - 10/01/2010
10/01/2010 - 11/01/2010
11/01/2010 - 12/01/2010
12/01/2010 - 01/01/2011
01/01/2011 - 02/01/2011
02/01/2011 - 03/01/2011
03/01/2011 - 04/01/2011
04/01/2011 - 05/01/2011
05/01/2011 - 06/01/2011
06/01/2011 - 07/01/2011
07/01/2011 - 08/01/2011
08/01/2011 - 09/01/2011
09/01/2011 - 10/01/2011
10/01/2011 - 11/01/2011
11/01/2011 - 12/01/2011
12/01/2011 - 01/01/2012
01/01/2012 - 02/01/2012
02/01/2012 - 03/01/2012
03/01/2012 - 04/01/2012
04/01/2012 - 05/01/2012
05/01/2012 - 06/01/2012
06/01/2012 - 07/01/2012
07/01/2012 - 08/01/2012
08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012
09/01/2012 - 10/01/2012
10/01/2012 - 11/01/2012
11/01/2012 - 12/01/2012
12/01/2012 - 01/01/2013
01/01/2013 - 02/01/2013
02/01/2013 - 03/01/2013
03/01/2013 - 04/01/2013
04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013
05/01/2013 - 06/01/2013
06/01/2013 - 07/01/2013
07/01/2013 - 08/01/2013
08/01/2013 - 09/01/2013
09/01/2013 - 10/01/2013
10/01/2013 - 11/01/2013
11/01/2013 - 12/01/2013
12/01/2013 - 01/01/2014
01/01/2014 - 02/01/2014
02/01/2014 - 03/01/2014
03/01/2014 - 04/01/2014
04/01/2014 - 05/01/2014
05/01/2014 - 06/01/2014
06/01/2014 - 07/01/2014
07/01/2014 - 08/01/2014
08/01/2014 - 09/01/2014
09/01/2014 - 10/01/2014
10/01/2014 - 11/01/2014
11/01/2014 - 12/01/2014
12/01/2014 - 01/01/2015
01/01/2015 - 02/01/2015
02/01/2015 - 03/01/2015
03/01/2015 - 04/01/2015
04/01/2015 - 05/01/2015
05/01/2015 - 06/01/2015
06/01/2015 - 07/01/2015
07/01/2015 - 08/01/2015
08/01/2015 - 09/01/2015
09/01/2015 - 10/01/2015
10/01/2015 - 11/01/2015
11/01/2015 - 12/01/2015
12/01/2015 - 01/01/2016
01/01/2016 - 02/01/2016
02/01/2016 - 03/01/2016
03/01/2016 - 04/01/2016
04/01/2016 - 05/01/2016
05/01/2016 - 06/01/2016
06/01/2016 - 07/01/2016
07/01/2016 - 08/01/2016
08/01/2016 - 09/01/2016
09/01/2016 - 10/01/2016
10/01/2016 - 11/01/2016
11/01/2016 - 12/01/2016
12/01/2016 - 01/01/2017
01/01/2017 - 02/01/2017
02/01/2017 - 03/01/2017
03/01/2017 - 04/01/2017
04/01/2017 - 05/01/2017
05/01/2017 - 06/01/2017
06/01/2017 - 07/01/2017
07/01/2017 - 08/01/2017
08/01/2017 - 09/01/2017
09/01/2017 - 10/01/2017
10/01/2017 - 11/01/2017
11/01/2017 - 12/01/2017
12/01/2017 - 01/01/2018
01/01/2018 - 02/01/2018
02/01/2018 - 03/01/2018
03/01/2018 - 04/01/2018
04/01/2018 - 05/01/2018
05/01/2018 - 06/01/2018
06/01/2018 - 07/01/2018
07/01/2018 - 08/01/2018
08/01/2018 - 09/01/2018
09/01/2018 - 10/01/2018
10/01/2018 - 11/01/2018
11/01/2018 - 12/01/2018
12/01/2018 - 01/01/2019
01/01/2019 - 02/01/2019
02/01/2019 - 03/01/2019
03/01/2019 - 04/01/2019
04/01/2019 - 05/01/2019
05/01/2019 - 06/01/2019
06/01/2019 - 07/01/2019
07/01/2019 - 08/01/2019
08/01/2019 - 09/01/2019
09/01/2019 - 10/01/2019
10/01/2019 - 11/01/2019
11/01/2019 - 12/01/2019
12/01/2019 - 01/01/2020
01/01/2020 - 02/01/2020
02/01/2020 - 03/01/2020
03/01/2020 - 04/01/2020
04/01/2020 - 05/01/2020
05/01/2020 - 06/01/2020
06/01/2020 - 07/01/2020
07/01/2020 - 08/01/2020
08/01/2020 - 09/01/2020
09/01/2020 - 10/01/2020
10/01/2020 - 11/01/2020
11/01/2020 - 12/01/2020
12/01/2020 - 01/01/2021
02/01/2021 - 03/01/2021
03/01/2021 - 04/01/2021
04/01/2021 - 05/01/2021
05/01/2021 - 06/01/2021
06/01/2021 - 07/01/2021
07/01/2021 - 08/01/2021
08/01/2021 - 09/01/2021
09/01/2021 - 10/01/2021
10/01/2021 - 11/01/2021
11/01/2021 - 12/01/2021
12/01/2021 - 01/01/2022
01/01/2022 - 02/01/2022
02/01/2022 - 03/01/2022
03/01/2022 - 04/01/2022
04/01/2022 - 05/01/2022
05/01/2022 - 06/01/2022
06/01/2022 - 07/01/2022
07/01/2022 - 08/01/2022
08/01/2022 - 09/01/2022
09/01/2022 - 10/01/2022
10/01/2022 - 11/01/2022
11/01/2022 - 12/01/2022
12/01/2022 - 01/01/2023
01/01/2023 - 02/01/2023
02/01/2023 - 03/01/2023
03/01/2023 - 04/01/2023
04/01/2023 - 05/01/2023
05/01/2023 - 06/01/2023

Powered by Blogger