The filmography of the actor-director has shown interest in scenes from the end of the world, including production and participation in a remake of “Fail Safe” for CBS, and is back in this territory. Set in 2049, the film begins three weeks after an unspecified “event” spelling the fate of humanity, with Augustine de Clooney, set in an advanced Arctic location, still alive, but for how long. time no one knows.
However, Augustine has a task to do: warn a spaceship with a diverse crew of astronauts to return to a dying planet, but hoping to divert them, after a mission to the deep space that could have provided hope for a habitable planet where they could take refuge.
Adapted from Lily Brooks-Dalton’s book “Good Morning, Midnight” by writer Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”), the film oscillates between the astronauts and Augustine, while revealing details about the his character through a series of flashbacks.
The premise is bleak and the sleigh (literally, when Augustine realizes he needs to get somewhere else to contact him) is cumbersome. The explorers also have formidable challenges, with a crew that includes Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir and Tiffany Boone.
With less than a rather dramatic space action sequence, “The Midnight Sky” progresses in a somewhat passionate way, especially during the terrestrial sequences involving Clooney and the young woman (Caoilinn Springall) who becomes his companion. (Tom Hanks also plays in front of a kid on “World News,” so there must be something in the water).
Perhaps inevitably, the film bears a resemblance to other recent set spaces, including a film in which Clooney co-starred, “Gravity,” and Christopher Nolan’s cerebral “interstellar.” The main difference is a prevailing sense of hope that functions as a drag against the drama.
Clooney soon established with “Good Night and Good Luck” that he was a serious filmmaker, rather than an awkward movie star, and that he has ventured with questionable commercial viability projects, to the subordinate “Suburbicon” and “Men of the monuments “.
“The Midnight Sky” is released from any pressure to light up the box office sky on Netflix, and that’s just as good. Because while Clooney has presented a disturbing and thoughtful film, the story dramatically – a bit like Clooney’s taciturn scientist – feels confined to a prison of its own.
“Midnight Sky” premieres on December 23 on Netflix.