Our second movie from last week is Netflix’s The Midnight Sky (2020). Based on a book (which I haven’t read so can’t compare) Good Morning Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton. It is directed by and stars George Clooney.
Set in 2049 Clooney plays a scientist, Augustine Lofthouse, who has worked for most of his life in finding habitable planets so that humanity can expand, and there are various missions either planned or already out in space looking for these planets. Unfortunately something cataclysmic has happened on our world and bit by bit massive radiation is spreading through Earths atmosphere, and no-one is surviving it. Lofthouse stays behind in the Arctic, which will be the last place for the radiation to reach, whilst his colleagues are evacuated to go and be with their families. We never find out how the apocalypse started, but there is a hint that it’s our fault.
Lofhouse finds out that the spaceship Æther is the only outstanding mission in space and is on it’s way home, after finding one of Lofthouse’s planets suitable for human beings, and he is trying to contact them to tell them what’s happened and not to come back. However, his radio antenna is too weak to reach the ship. There is a more powerful antenna higher up in the arctic and he has to try and get to it to save the Æther.
That’s about it for spoilers. This was a quiet yet compelling movie, with a fair few crises for the characters to go through. The Arctic scenes were filmed in Iceland and a blizzard scene was filmed in 50-mile-per-hour winds with temperatures at 40 below zero and I give Clooney top marks for not using CGI and being authentic. The space scenes were done in the studio (obviously- even Clooney doesn’t have a spaceship!) and by necessity used CGI for the Spaceship but it was done really well. One particular scene has an injured crew member in the airlock and.. oh! no spoilers but it is amazing to watch.
The acting was great, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, Kyle Chandler and Demián Bichir play the crew of the Æther with conflicting feelings regarding their options once they know about Earth, and a special mention to Caoilinn Springall a little girl who has a just about non-speaking part but can emote with her eyes with the best of them. Clooney plays his character old and tired and ill, he needs regular dialysis, and he does look harrowed and knackered. It’s a poignant performance from him and he does it well.
I really liked this movie, for it’s cinematography, it’s acting and the questions it throws up about humanity. It has a grim premise, but not without a little hope. There is a slightly cheesy twist at the end of the story which I did see coming, but it didn’t spoil things, just made me glad for the story that I was right.
Fraggle Rating: A win for George!
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