The actor-director’s filmography has shown interest in end-of-the-world scenarios – including production and starring in a “Fail Safe” remake for CBS – and he is back in that territory here. Set in 2049, the film begins three weeks after an unspecified “event” that will spell doom for humanity, with Augustine of Clooney – located at an outpost in the Arctic – still alive, but for how long no one knows.
Still, Augustine has a task to do: to alert a spacecraft with a diverse crew of astronauts to return to an agonizing planet, but instead, hoping to divert them, after a mission in deep space that could have provided the hope of a habitable planet on which they could take refuge.
Adapted from the book “Good Morning, Midnight” by Lily Brooks-Dalton, by writer Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”), the film oscillates between the astronauts and Augustine, while exposing details about his character through a series of flashbacks. .
The premise is grim and the sledding (literally, when Augustine realizes that he needs to reach another location to contact them) is arduous. There are also formidable challenges for explorers, with a crew that includes Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir and Tiffany Boone.
Except for a rather dramatic space action sequence, “The Midnight Sky” moves on somewhat apathetically, especially during terrestrial sequences involving Clooney and the young woman (Caoilinn Springall) who becomes his companion. (Tom Hanks also plays a child in “News of the World”, so there must be something in the water.)
Perhaps inevitably, the film bears a resemblance to another recent space setting, including a film in which Clooney co-starred, “Gravity”, and Christopher Nolan’s cerebral “Interstellar”. The main difference is a predominant sense of hopelessness that acts as a hindrance against drama.
Clooney established early on with “Good Night, and Good Luck” that he was a serious filmmaker, as opposed to an experienced movie star, and he took chances with projects of questionable commercial viability, like the unbalanced “Suburbicon” and “Os Monuments Men. “
“The Midnight Sky” is spared any pressure to light up the box office sky on Netflix, and that’s fine. Because while Clooney has presented a sober and thoughtful film, dramatically speaking the story – a bit like Clooney’s taciturn scientist – seems confined in a prison of his own making.
“The Midnight Sky” opens on December 23 on Netflix.