The Midnight Sky

New to Netflix.

George Clooney directs and stars in this adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s book. Set in 2049 we find Clooney’s Augustine, alone on an abandoned science base in the Arctic, a survivor of a seemingly extinction event that has impacted the planet. Clooney has to set off on a treacherous journey across the Arctic to a more poweful broadcast station to get a warning to the crew of Ether, a space craft returning to earth from K23 a moon of Jupiter successfully explored as a planet capable of sustaining life, and get them to turn back.

Clooney has already described The Midnight Sky as Gravity meets The Revenant and there’s the challenge, they are two quite different stories can you mix them together to provide a cohesive narrative?

The film does have issues and you can see why questions over plot holes and pacing exist, but, much of that didn’t bother me. The story telling is certainly patient, but for me it worked well in building tension and bringing the two narratives together. We have Augustine’s journey across the frozen lands a slow burning adventure in which he is joined by Iris (Caoilinn Springall) a young girl abandoned at the station. Alongside it we have the journey on Ether, heading back to earth with no contact and no idea why, captained by Adewoe (David Oyelowo) with communications officer Sully (Felicity Jones) soon to be a mother to their child and crew trying to understand the silence from Earth.

The story is one of loss, regret and hope and personally I enjoyed it, Clooney’s grizzled world weary scientist inspired to continue by Iris, plays well against the hope and optimism of Ethers crew.

While it’s not perfect, its good performances and patient storytelling helped to build tension while its solid emotional core gave me characters to care about and keep me engaged to the end.