Noah Hawley’s Lucy In The Sky was not exactly anticipated by the population at large. With a 23% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this review, it seems destined to fall into obscurity almost as soon as it has been released. Which is, in this moviegoer’s opinion, a crying shame.
Lucy In The Sky’s titular Lucy Cola is an astronaut in some undefined, vaguely present-day era who comes back from a mission to space only to find herself changed. Not in a horror movie sense, by some alien contagion, but in a philosophical sense. How do you go back to your daily routine once you have seen all of humanity from above? How do you return to your old perspective now that you know what is out there? As Lucy struggles to return to herself and qualify for the next spaceflight, she begins to unravel, and a series of dire choices leads her farther from the heavens than ever.
As anyone who has ever seen one episode of Legion will know, Noah Hawley has a unique, directorial eye. The editing of this movie was crazy, but, more importantly, engaging. Its most abrasive quality is its constantly shifting aspect ratio. While this didn’t bother me, I can easily see how it could start to get on others’ nerves. On a less visual note, I thoroughly enjoyed Natalie Portman’s portrayal of a woman in love with the beauty of the world, desperate to maintain control of her life and herself while also achieving her goals.
However, with visuals and a story this crazy, this movie should have had a watertight narrative. Unfortunately, it just felt jumbled at points, with metaphors and motivations mixing together and losing clarity as the film reached its climax. Additionally, the script isn’t always easy to take seriously, and characters sometimes make choices that seem to be wholly unmotivated.
At its core, Lucy In The Sky is a film about boundaries, and the cost of transcending those boundaries. As the film’s aspect ratios bend, distort, and break, we wonder how much of the picture we’ve been missing, and we too begin to miss the transcendent moments of visual freedom from the film’s opening spaceflight. And, not to give away the ending, we learn that we don’t have to go all the way to outer space to find beauty. We can find beauty everywhere we look.
Lucy In The Sky is the kind of movie that doesn’t come out every day. It’s bold. It takes risks. Some of those risks pay off, and some don’t, but it certainly gives every choice its all. And shouldn’t that be rewarded? Shouldn’t we celebrate creativity, even when it’s not pitch perfect?
Lucy In The Sky is not for everyone. It is certainly not an easy movie to enjoy. However, I would encourage you to not let this film drift into the abyss. It’s certainly worth seeing on the big screen. Maybe you’ll leave the film like I did, with your perspective just a little bit different.
3/5 STARS