In this review we will analyze and talk about Spaceman, the latest work by Johan Renck starring Adam Sandler and available on Netflix
ORIGINAL TITLE: Spaceman. TYPE: Dramatic. NATION: United States of America. REGIA: Johan Renck. CAST: Adam Sandler, Kunal Nayyar, Carey Mulligan, Jackie Sandler, Paul Dano (Hanuš). DURATION: 107 minutes. DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix.
It wasn’t easy to approach the vision of Spaceman and it won’t be for anyone who wants to watch it even after reading this review (in which there will be no spoilers of any kind). Spaceman is a film that is perhaps not flawless from a technical point of view but it does its job. Dig in and pushes us to reflect on how many times we deny ourselves that internal dialogue which sometimes, loudly, tries to emerge and take over.
We repress, get distracted and procrastinate, all to avoid facing our own fears and monsters. And in Spaceman, the monster theme is crucial. Adam Sandler’s interpretation, which we have rarely seen in such dramatic roles, manages to involve the viewer from the first minute, from when, after a few moments and a few scenes, he is asked the question: “How does it feel to be the loneliest man in the world?”
In the middle of the universe | Spaceman review
Let’s go and start ours review with what is the plot, or even better, the narrative incipit of Spaceman. Jakub Procházka (our Adam Sandler) is a Czech astrophysicist who accepts an eight-month mission to explore a cloud of dust and particles, called Chopra, in the space created by a comet at well 500 million km from Planet Earth in total solitude. Everything comes together in what is a back and forth between the public status of Jakub who will become a real celebrity and what, instead, is his state of mind.
A soul overwhelmed and tormented by that sense of ambition that pushed him to accept such a mission and which, however, in turn, feels the detachment from what made him alive and which represented for him his main reason for life: the love he feels for his wife Lenkawho is also pregnant and about to give birth to a baby girl.
Hanush | Spaceman reviews
Spaceman is a work in which the dialogues represent the common thread of the entire message that was decided to convey. Dialogues that are sometimes interrupted and alternated with forced silences, like the progressive lack of communication between Jakub and his wife and dialogues with a character that Jakub will meet about a quarter of the way through the film. It’s a matter of Hanusa huge spider-looking alien who invades the human’s spaceship.
At first scared and then intrigued, Jakub approaches him and begins the relationship that binds the whole film together. Jakub and Hanuš are two sides of the same coin, two solitary travellers. On the one hand a human being, scared of himself and without any point of reference and on the other a monster, prosopopoeia of solitude and those shadows that animate the spirit but which, once faced and once accepted, are able to offer food for thought and are able to offer answers to those questions which, with a strong charge and connotation psychoanalyticlo stesso Hanuš pone and Jakub.
There are various cultural and literary references and references that the image of the two close characters can generate: such as the autobiographical stories by Antonio Gramsci that on the cold nights in Turin he saw an enormous spider at the foot of his bed, a representation of his physical and psychological discomfort.
An ambivalent photography | Spaceman review
From a directorial point of view and from a photography point of view, Spaceman presents itself as an excellent product but with some elements dissonant with the emotional and reflective charge with which it is imbued. The management of photography is particular and can generate amazement both positively and negatively speaking. This is because the choice made by the director places the emphasis on an unrealistic context and on events that have little to do with what the natural laws of the universe may be.
Spaceman, however, it is not a treatise on science and astrophysics and it certainly doesn’t try to be one in the slightest but places the emphasis on topos of the trip, yes in the middle of space but mainly within one’s own mind and psyche. In several scenes we seem to witness what the romantic intellectuals called sublimethat sturm und drang in which man is almost attracted by that wild and in some ways malignant nature of nature itself.
This is made perfectly by the presentation of some scenes and images in which, despite the CGI being felt and perceived, one can feel that sense of amazement and emptiness that affects the characters: from Jakub, to the monster, to the spectator who, to in turn, becomes a character and is involved in that empathetic dialogue and dedicated to the care of his own melancholic soul.
Conclusions
We’ve reached the final stages of this one Spaceman review, a film available on Netflix starring Adam Sandler. His interpretation is the basis and represents the definitive key to understanding this work. A work that is probably imperfect but which, precisely for this reason, makes its essence the communicative relationship between what appears on the screen and the spectator.
The incessant, profound, painful and biting dialogues between Jakub and the monster Hanuš constitute the mainstay of the entire production. Loneliness is a terrible monster to facewith 6 eyes, hairy paws and poisonous and sharp teeth, but if known to question, even the worst of monsters and even the worst of our nightmares can become, through a process of acceptance, a faithful companion which sometimes you can’t do without, without running the risk of self-intoxication.
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Adam Sandler is alone, like each of us
Points in favor
- Adam Sandler in a dramatic new guise
- Dialogues that create strong empathy with the viewer
- Very impactful photography…
Points against
- …sometimes forcefully
- Very slow pace at times
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