 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Being recently on a Desplat rediscovery binge I am really looking forward to this!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
according to the first reviews on imdb, this seems to be a very bad movie.
The reviewer at the Washington Post seems to feel otherwise. N.B., the reviewer has gone out of his way to avoid spoilers!
By Michael O'Sullivan
Film critic and reporter covering movies and the people who make them
Dec. 15, 2020 at 5:00 a.m. PST
(4 stars)
Set in the year 2049, in the immediate aftermath of an unspecified global calamity that appears, based on scant but at times scary evidence, to be both environmental and technological — perhaps even financial, political and cultural — “The Midnight Sky” only looks like a disaster film. Slyly, and by misdirection that cleverly conceals its true intent until the poignant end, it reveals itself to be a story of regret over a lost opportunity for connection.
George Clooney, who also directed Mark L. Smith’s smart adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel, plays the fulcrum of the film’s deft pivot: Augustine Lofthouse, an astronomer stationed at an observatory in far-northern Canada, inside the Arctic Circle. As the film opens, and Augustine’s research colleagues are being evacuated by plane to their homes — and an unknown fate — he alone has decided to remain. It’s not that Augustine is bound by an unreasonable sense of duty, or is simply foolhardy, as one of his co-workers suggests to the scientist.
If our protagonist, who appears to have a serious illness, were “in a hurry to die,” Augustine responds, he’d be leaving with the others. Rather, it’s that Augustine, having spent his life as an explorer — albeit a vicarious, earthbound one — has nothing and nobody to go back to.
Shortly afterward, two things happen. Augustine becomes aware of a spacecraft named the Aether whose crew (played by Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bechír and Tiffany Boone) is returning from a mission to explore a potentially habitable moon of Jupiter. Having lost their communication with Earth, they need to be warned not to come back. The second thing is the appearance of a small, apparently mute girl (Caoilinn Springall), who seems to have been left behind in the rush to evacuate. Dubbed Iris, after a drawing she makes of the flower, the child becomes Augustine’s responsibility, along with the necessity of making his way to a second, stronger antenna, some distance away, after the one at the observatory proves inadequate to connect with the Aether.
How these two things are related is only gradually disclosed, in a story that jumps between the Arctic, the Aether and the past, where we see, in flashback, a younger Augustine (Ethan Peck) set up the idea of exploring the planets in search of a second home for Man, who, it is implied, hasn’t taken care of his first one. That idea — that Augustine was a catalyst in sending the Aether off — is only part of a story that peels itself like an onion — and just as surely produces tears.
Meanwhile, the film is not without action.
Although Augustine and the crew of the Aether can only observe the death of Earth from afar, they nevertheless encounter grave dangers: a wintry storm here below, an uncharted and destructive meteor field up above. Yet slowly the story becomes more and more interior, as its point comes into focus.
As director, Clooney juggles the interconnecting stories adroitly, never giving away the tricks he’s playing on the audience while spinning the yarn, much of which, at least on the Aether, has explicitly to do with hope and longing. Jones’s Sully is expecting a baby, with the Aether’s commander (Oyelowo), and several scenes aboard the ship feature a “Star Trek”-like holodeck-style technology that allows members of the crew to immerse themselves in virtual-reality evocations of the people and places they remember from Earth.
With Augustine, it’s more subtle, evoked both through his increasingly tender relationship with Iris and the flashbacks, which hint at a man who has only realized too late what he could have had.
Beneath a bushy beard, often caked with frost, Clooney’s Augustine manages to convey a powerful sense that something has been forfeited forever. What that is, and how “The Midnight Sky” manages to show him reaching out, however imperfectly, to restore something broken, is the message — and the magic — of this movie.
PG-13. Available Dec. 23 on Netflix. Contains some bloody images and brief strong language. 118 minutes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This came out today. One of the biggest disappointments of the year. I was expecting something lush and grand after those two preview cues but they're the exception, not the rule. Desplat instead ups the electronics (obnoxiously) and writes a bunch of broody suspense music. The score doesn't have much of a thematic profile and the action music also sounds weirdly dumbed down for this composer.
Basically, don't go in expecting another Valerian. I suppose given the subject matter of the film, that was a bad expectation to begin with.
Valerian: kitschy space opera
The Midnight Sky: drama about regret
Why would one expect "another Valerian" score?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why in the world i would expect a Valerian-type score in a drama?
Still, another great Desplat.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Basically, don't go in expecting another Valerian. I suppose given the subject matter of the film, that was a bad expectation to begin with.
I don't think anyone was expecting another Valerian while listening to Midnight Sky, that's like expecting another Star Wars while listening to A.I. or Minority Report.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I don't think anyone was expecting another Valerian while listening to Midnight Sky, that's like expecting another Star Wars while listening to A.I. or Minority Report.
I was. That's on me for not researching the film better. But even if I approach the score as a drama, it's still a disappointment.
For you. Too bad. But there are plenty of scores around for you to enjoy. So, happy holidays.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Equally poor is the music by Alexandre Desplat, which is often intrusive and used during the poignant or intense moments to tell viewers what to feel.
From Salon.com.
I am not sure what is worse, film critics who thinks everything melodic or emotional is intrusive or film score fans who thinks anything not melodic or emotional sucks.
That is actually a fantastic observation!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
movie is crap,
score is okay!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
George Clooney is a wonderful person and humanitarian.... and a consistently terrible director.
Of the films he's directed -- CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, LEATHERHEADS, THE IDES OF MARCH, THE MONUMENTS MEN, SUBURBICON and now this -- only GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK held together, and I would argue that the power of that movie was its subject material rather than what Clooney did with it.
Couldn’t disagree more. Clooney is a great and totally underrated director, often just not in tune with current trends.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
