Watch The Midnight Sky on Netflix
Written by: Lily Brooks-Dalton (based on the book 'Good Morning, Midnight' by), Mark L. Smith (screenplay by)
Directed by: George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
This post-apocalyptic tale follows Augustine, a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.
Verdict
I have no issues with the mysterious extinction event that's never explained, but this movie is a harsh tale of survival that doesn't seem as difficult as it should be. Surviving in the Arctic should be life threatening and it never feels that way. We get two stories that seem like they should connect, and they eventually do, but it's a connection that's a bit too cute. This raises a number of crucial plot questions that are never satisfactorily answered or just ignored to progress the plot. There's a lot I just don't buy.
Skip it.
Review
Augustine (George Clooney), a famous scientist, remains at an Arctic science station after evacuation due to a terminal condition. I'm not sure why everyone evacuated as the Arctic seems like it could be the safest place in the world, removed from everything else. A young girl left behind at the station complicates Augustine's plight. He discovers a space ship returning from an exploration mission, and he must warn them to turn back. The ship can't contact Earth as mission control no longer exists.
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| George Clooney plays Augustine. |
Radiation creeps closer to the station. That and a need for a larger satellite to contact the space ship pushes Augustine to traverse the Arctic to a different base. The is my big issue with the movie. That journey should be life threatening, and it never seems very dangerous. They're dressed for a ski trip, not negative temperatures. I wonder if the radiation is increasing the temperature, but either the movie doesn't address that or I missed it. At one point Augustine falls into what I can only assume is freezing water. I thought that was going to be a death sentence, as he doesn't have any other clothes or a heat source, but it's not a big deal at all. The shock of the cold water alone could be enough to send him into shock. It's not treated as life threatening, and I don't believe that. The journey seems too easy.
With flashbacks from when Augustine was younger and ruined his marriage because of his work, this girl left behind seems like a scenario where she can be the daughter he never had. It's a chance at redemption as he's near the end of his life.
The movie makes everything seem too easy. The crew on the space ship treat the space walk as rather routine. Another Life treated a space walk as extremely dangerous. While that show was tropey and a conglomeration of sci-fi movies, the space scenes felt real.
The conclusion of the movie is a bit of a trick. It brings everything together, and it seems that the whole movie is a vehicle for the twist. It's a very cute ending, almost too cute with how everything lines up. I appreciate the explanation for why these two stories matter, but I'd rather this be more of a harsh survival story with a parallel between the journey on Earth and in space.
The crew's fates on the space station are a bit ridiculous, from the choices made to the plan to create a new colony with only two people. With no genetic diversity, I don't see the colony going far. If the conclusion was this colony is the only way for the crew to live, that's great. The movie presents it as a chance at a new Earth.
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