The Astronaut Review: Kate Mara Excels in Jess Varley’s Ambitious But Uneven Sci-Fi Horror
At first glance, a film title as apparent as The Astronaut and a poster featuring a distraught Kate Mara in a spacesuit and a broken helmet suggest the movie takes place in outer space. Or at least, the bulk of its runtime. But instead, writer-director Jess Varley (Phobias) predominantly sets her story in a single location: a large and posh remote home far away from civilisation within the wilderness.
The movie gets off to an ambiguous, yet intriguing start: The titular astronaut, Captain Sam Walker (Kate Mara), has just re-entered Earth after her first trip to space. Her landing pod is floating in the middle of the ocean, and rescue boats are already approaching the scene to retrieve her from the pod. She’s injured and unconscious with her helmet’s visor shattered. The fact that she miraculously survives after a botched re-entry raises a few questions: How is it even possible? And more importantly, what really happens in outer space?
This is the kind of mystery where the director chooses to withhold the information, wanting the audience to experience what Sam is going through. The aftermath of her rescue is spent being quarantined in the aforementioned location in Virginia, while the people at NASA are trying to figure out what happened to her. Her father, General William Harris (Laurence Fishburne), shows up every now and then to monitor her condition. Sam’s husband (Gabriel Luna) and daughter (Scarlett Holmes) only get to see her periodically. This means Sam is left alone for most of the time, and strange things start to occur that she has a hard time trying to make sense of.
Varley took a cue from the haunted house tropes, filling in her movie with obligatory jump scares and a foreboding sense of dread. It may have been clichéd, but it still works to a certain degree, thanks to Dave Garbett’s atmospheric cinematography and the movie’s evocative sound design. Varley also teases something possibly sinister lurking in the darkness, but smart enough not to fully reveal what it is, prioritising tension and suspense as we see Sam become increasingly panicked and jittery, being stalked by the fear of the unknown. At one point, Varley does a good job of evoking the thrilling vibe of Jurassic Park‘s iconic kitchen scene.
Speaking of the character, the movie relies heavily on Kate Mara’s performance since the story mostly zeroes in on her. She does her best here, but her co-stars like Gabriel Luna and Laurence Fishburne are sadly reduced to thankless supporting roles. The movie may have clocked in just 90 minutes, but I still can’t help noticing it tends to be repetitive, while the pacing isn’t as taut as I thought it would be.
Exposition dumps start to creep in as the movie progresses, and when it’s finally time to wrap up everything, this is where Varley begins to falter. A third act which reveals the truth about what happens to Sam, and all I can say it leaves me with mixed feelings. It’s jarring like a sudden detour that comes out of nowhere. Even if it meant to be a shocking twist, such a narrative and tonal shift is only justifiable if Varley develops her story well enough.
It doesn’t help that it somewhat feels random and preposterous. Sure, the story makes it look as if Sam’s father seemingly holds the key to what’s going on with her. And yet, the movie botches the potential by undermining his character, who just appears sporadically, says a few words before disappearing again and vice versa. It’s a missed opportunity because the movie actually has potential, especially with the promising setup at the beginning of the movie. Even with the over-reliance on the rinse-and-repeat horror-movie tropes, it still has its few moments that keep me watching and anticipating what happens next. Too bad the ending nearly ruins everything with an awkwardly misplaced payoff.
