Revisiting Ad Astra

Very few undeserved audience backlashes to any movie make me as angry as the backlash to Ad Astra. No, this movie is not an accurate representation of space travel, but not once does it claim to be, and it is entirely unfair to criticize it for ignoring something it never intended to acknowledge in the first place. And no, its advertising does not accurately represent the movie it actually is, but anyone who thinks for a moment that this is the fault of the film is kidding themselves. Ad Astra united every neckbeard across America in hatred of it for patently stupid reasons. I can't believe this needs to be said, but movies are neither a science textbook nor a TED Talk on logic, and good movies are not going to hold your dainty little hand all the way through them.

This movie is subtle, where many wanted it to make grand gestures. It is restrained, though many wished it were off the leash. And it is contemplative, where some would rather have had every conclusion and insinuation lazily spoon-fed to them. It is a thoughtful movie for thoughtful people, released in a world run primarily by reactionaries. Let me be clear: we as the audience failed Ad Astra because we weren't intelligent or patient enough to let it be the movie it wanted to be.

The movie is, in essence, Heart of Darkness in outer space. It's set sometime in the near future, where traveling to the moon and beyond has become as commercialized as the 2 o'clock flight to Little Rock. Astronaut Roy McBride's father disappeared into the rings of Neptune just as effectively as Roy's wife did out the door, and now the US Government wants Roy to travel to Neptune to investigate a series of mysterious antimatter ray bursts originating from there - they believe his father is responsible for them. This movie serves as little more than a series of tests and trials for Roy's psyche, an experiment that quietly pushes both a man's love for his family and his mental stability to the breaking point. This movie is not grandly emotional; rather, it is subtly emotionally complex.

Ad Astra takes on the quality of a dream, and like any dream, you may have trouble remembering exactly how everything in it happened once it's over. That's a good thing. This movie is not watched as or even trying to be the sum of its mechanical parts. This is a high-thinking drama that is gloriously experienced if you're willing to let it be. It is also surprising. It lets you assume things about it before changing the context of everything you had just watched late in the fourth quarter.

Ad Astra is an intimate character study of Brad Pitt's Roy, exploring his perception of outer space just as much as the actual thing in ways not unlike Apocalypse Now, the famed film adaptation of Heart of Darkness. Everything we see is filtered through Roy's perspective, and his perspective of space is nothing short of a painting, both emotionally and visually. The cinematography of this film is beyond beautiful, its use of color among the most stunning I've ever seen. It's sometimes comparable to the gorgeous Blade Runner 2049, and the virtually photo-realistic computer-generated imagery of Ad Astra only adds to the experience. All of it is in service to Roy and his no-holds-barred search for answers.

Ad Astra doesn't skimp on style either, effortlessly fusing elements of science fiction, drama, fantasy, and even horror. Numerous times, I found myself thinking something along the lines of, where do people come up with ideas like this? And numerous times, I also completely forgot about its bigness and even about its spectacle as it fixated on the emotions of the characters it is fundamentally about. This movie is far more than the sum of its technical parts, as incredible as they may be. It is effortlessly big, and yet effortlessly private when it comes to examining Roy and his fears and dreams, hopes and regrets. His desires, his needs. His loves.

I feel that getting bogged down in the technical talk of Ad Astra more than is necessary would be a disservice to what this film is trying to accomplish, so I hope you don't mind if I move on. Yes, I understand this is a movie made "for the critics." It doesn't tell you everything, but it suggests just enough to emotionally reward those who are actually invested in listening to what it has to say about life itself. The subtext is subtle, but it's there, hiding behind Roy's sorrowful eyes. This is a movie that refuses to hold your hand or wash over you like an obvious emotional ocean as Interstellar did.

I wouldn't exactly call Ad Astra a psychological thriller, but it is psychological nonetheless, a movie about a man slowly losing his mind. It is a movie that touches on the basic human need for connection with those we love, what happens when we are denied it, and the lengths we will go to, the bridges we will burn to regain it. It is a movie about two men: a son who loves his father more than anything and anyone else, and a father who doesn't love his son enough. It is not an action movie, and it had its otherwise capable legs chopped out from under it when its marketing team portrayed it as such. Instead, it is something else entirely, a small and intimate story about a son's need for his father set against the big and indifferently beautiful canvas of outer space and our entitled belief that anything in it is owed to our colonialist minds.

Ad Astra exists to make you ponder the universe, your place in it, and how that makes you feel. It is not in a hurry to get to where it is going, nor should it be. It is both methodical and creative, a brilliantly realized barely-fantasy, and we weren't smart, imaginative, patient, or accepting enough of creative license to appreciate it for what it is. It is not a movie targeted at the adrenal glands of casual moviegoers, and the biggest mistake this entire production made was marketing it as though it were. My encouragement to you would be to watch this movie, to accept it for what it wants to be, and to get swept away by the music, the imagination, and the very wonder of space itself.

Perhaps my anger with holier-than-thou audience culture is misguided. Perhaps I spoke too rashly, though as I write the final sentences of this review, I have no intention of going back to the start of it to make it seem as though my initial thoughts were something other than what they actually were. I hope I've elaborated sufficiently enough to help you understand why I love this movie so much. And I hope that one day, if you feel differently than I do, you'll give this movie a chance to be what it wants to be and grow to love it just as much as I do, for either the same reasons or different ones.

This movie will take you on a methodical, sometimes slow journey that's still unlike any other, and I encourage you to be patient with it. It exists to make you ponder the vastness of outer space, to make you both fear and wonder at the fact that, on this side of Heaven, we may truly be alarmingly, blissfully alone.

Ad Astra - 10/10

Isaiah 40:25-26