“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?” – Robert Browning
Exploration — whether into the vast expanse beyond our atmosphere or simply deep into Earth’s own uncharted territories — has become one of the most identifiable aspects of humankind over its short history. In modern times, it is done to reach beyond our understanding of the world or universe and our place within them, to discover that which we were previously unaware of in order to expand the reaches of human knowledge, or perhaps to conquer the universe as much as we can. Stories of exploration are abundant throughout the history of cinema, from Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon all the way back in 1902 to countless sci-fi epics and action-adventure films, and Ad Astra is no exception.
James Gray, director of Ad Astra, is no stranger to stories of exploration. In 2016 he released his film The Lost City of Z, a recounting of the journeys of early 20th century explorer Percy Fawcett deep into the Amazon jungle in search of a hidden city of gold and unimaginable treasures. Although largely overlooked by many and passed on by every major award ceremony, the film garnered great critical success and is soundly among the better films released this decade. It was a deep examination into the outward and inward motivations for journeying into the unknown, a theme that Gray would dive even deeper into in Ad Astra.
Set sometime in the near future, the story follows a fearless astronaut named Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), a taciturn and austere individual and son of legendary astronaut H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). Following an incident in which a massive and mysterious power surge nearly kills him and sweeps across the planet, McBride is informed that the surges originate from the Lima Project, a previous mission with the intent of finding extraterrestrial life helmed by his father, from which nothing had been heard from in sixteen years. Informed that his father may still be alive, McBride accepts a mission to Mars and beyond with the intent of communicating with the Lima Project and uncovering the truth about the dangerous surges that threaten life on Earth — and to find his father.
Although it is filled with intermittent bursts of effervescence — especially a Mad Max-like moon battle on wheels — the film is much more concerned with taking its time to flesh out the psychological complexities of the stoic Roy McBride, and the shock to his system that his mission becomes. Roy sees his father as the legend and the hero that all astronauts perhaps ought to be seen as, and thus has modeled his entire life and being after the man. He is not only a lauded astronaut famous for his cool-headedness in the face of great danger, but he has crafted himself a shell through which he blocks his very self from existing in hopes of subconsciously eliminating his connection to his own and others’ emotions. In truth, he is terrified of opening himself up to others, and as a result he subconsciously destroys his sparse personal relationships out of pure unresponsiveness and rigidity. While his coldness is what makes him so excellent at his job, and such an asset to the government agency for which he serves, his unflinching exterior is in conflict with the cacophonous ocean of thoughts that roar in his head throughout the film. Gray makes use of repeated Malick-esque voice-over narration from McBride to emphasize the tumult of his psyche, as he struggles more and more to remove all vulnerabilities from himself as he delves deeper into his journey. Here, DP Hoyte van Hoytema’s intimate close-ups paired with Max Richter’s tremulous score complement Pitt’s restrained despair excellently, often holding for longer than expected on scenes with McBride alone in order to allow the audience to gain an incredible deep understanding of the character, even in moments of silence.
As the film goes deeper and deeper into the infinite, focus grows more and more intimate. Gray begins to hone in on the motivations for men taking off into the stars with a tight and uncompromising precision, asking if perhaps the men who go off to the stars for the sake of mankind are actually going to escape something, maybe even themselves. Beyond this, the film shows that for all of us hoping to continue running from that which we are afraid to reckon with, at some point there will be nowhere left to run. In McBride’s case, the film examines his own fears and startling realizations more deeply, as he grows more and more at odds with his seemingly inevitable fate of turning into his father, the man he once revered as a near God-like figure. In this sense, the film’s approach towards McBride’s voyage to find his God feels almost misotheistic, perhaps suggesting in this case that God is not dead, but that he has simply abandoned us.
Films like Ad Astra are diamonds in the rough. Rarely do deeply contemplative psychological examinations as good as this one get slapped with $90 million budgets and the full IMAX treatment, let alone even get made by a big studio at all. Modern masterpieces like this don’t come around too often.
5/5 STARS