Ad Astra

Release Date: September 20, 2019 (limited)
Runtime: 122 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox
Director: James Gray
Cast: Brad Pitt; Tommy Lee Jones; Liv Tyler; Ruth Negga; Donald Sutherland; Kimberly Elise; Loren Dean; Donnie Keshawarz

 
Ad Astra has lots to say about seeing things as they appear on the surface, about how one should always look deeper so as not to miss what could very well be in front of someone all along. As apt a metaphor as there is likely to be for the film itself: there’s a lot on the surface here that will appeal to anyone with the slightest bit of imagination. But it ultimately proves difficult to discern anything meaningful underneath what is undeniably an impressive production. Ad Astra amounts to watching Brad Pitt forced to confront his daddy issues in outer space. He might as well have been a truck driver or a chemist.

Brad Pitt (who, it must be said, just manages to get better – and better looking – with age) plays Roy McBride, a celebrated astronaut with a troubled personal life. While Roy is a respected professional in his own right, he continues to live in the shadow of his legendary astronaut father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones), a space pioneer who led the first manned mission to Neptune. Long thought to have died in space, top secret government sources now inform Roy that his father may…DA-DUM…actually be alive and not only behind the deaths of his crewmembers but, more urgently, of a series of mysterious energy surges wreaking havoc across the globe. They recruit Roy in an effort to exploit his relationship to this intergalactic Col. Kurtz and bring the man, if in fact alive, home. Cue the psychodynamics of Roy facing his longstanding paternal struggle throughout the rest of the movie.

Most of the dialogue (by Gray and Ethan Gross) is expository and much of Roy’s internal conflict is communicated very effectively in voice over by Pitt. But like many movies with a space milieu, the viewer buys a ticket for the visuals. In Ad Astra, if they are not particularly innovative, the visuals do not disappoint. We’ve all seen images from 2001 to Gravity of awesome space vistas and planets slowly orbiting into the camera’s frame, of astronauts floating around in zero gravity, and of high-tech, antiseptic gadgetry in gleaming white, sanitary spaceships. But where any drama worth its salt should thrive is in the narrative, and there just isn’t much to get involved with here, other than the central question of “is the father still alive and what happened to him on Neptune?” Roy’s lamentations on McBride, Sr. being an absentee father, Roy’s solitary existence as the son of a legend, and the failure of his own relationship with his wife (Liv Tyler – why did they need her?) are flat constructs that don’t serve to energize the film, but rather simply exist to offer us a series of close-ups of Brad Pitt’s face (not complaining here!) as he looks droopishly askew. It is most evident that director James Gray and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema are enamored of Brad Pitt’s face. But then again, who isn’t?

In addition to the recent Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, it is turning out to be a bumper year for Pitt, one of a rare breed of contemporary bona fide matinee idols in the traditional sense. Here, Pitt gives a performance of quiet beauty and his years reflected in the subtle lines on his face work to his advantage in portraying Roy’s melancholia.

Pitt’s star turn aside, Ad Astra shines in the way that most space-set movies do: in the visuals and extraordinary sound design and sound effects editing. The silence of space, underscored by Max Richter’s funereal score, the familiar sound of breathing in the space helmet, the forceful impact of a spacecraft landing on a distant planet…they’re all here and work magnificently.

So, is the movie entertaining enough to hold your attention for a few hours? In the sense that the central mystery of the missing father is intriguing, then yes. In the sense that the spacescapes and interplanetary locations are awe-inspiring (on the big screen – the movie will definitely lose significant measure of scope on smaller screens), then yes. In the sense that the narrative and the characters are absorbing and worth spending two hours with, then no. Although, I have to give Ad Astra a huge thank you for clocking in at a relatively-for-today manageable running time of two hours and two minutes!