The Midnight Sky
released 2020
www.ink2quill

“The Midnight Sky” is an American, scifi, post apocalyptic, space exploration, action, thriller film produced by Greg Baxter, Lily Brooks-Dalton, Bard Dorros, Jennifer Gates, Barbara A. Hall, Grant Heslov, Keith Redmon, Cliff Roberts, Todd Shuster and George Clooney who also directed it. It is based on a novel written by Lily Brooks-Dalton called “Good Morning, Midnight”. The screenplay was written by Mark L. Smith. It stars George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Caoilinn Springall, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir, Tiffany Boone, Sophie Rundle, Ethan Peck, Tim Russ, Miriam Shor, Lilja Nott Borarrinsdottir, Tia Bannon, Hanna Maria Karlsdottir and many others.

The Midnight Sky IMDb webpage

“The Midnight Sky” is the story of recluse Augustine Lofthouse, played by George Clooney, whose life work is to find habitable planets for the human race to colonize from a remote frozen outpost. His physical health is failing him and his alcohol consumption doesn´t help things. His psychological health is clearly deteriorating as well and this fact becomes clear as the story progresses. Flashbacks scenes from his past reveal that he was romantically involved with someone at a conference where he was giving a talk. Her name is Jean Sullivan, played by Sophie Rundle, and she ends up leaving Augustine becomes he does not seem to care about people or human company of any kind. We later learn that Jean was pregnant his daughter.

After a series of terrible disasters which might or might not have been man made the Earth is nearly completely unlivable. Toxic amounts of radiation means that Augustine, who might be the last living person on Earth is forced to live in a bunker like situation in the Arctic. This probably explains his air of having given up on things, doing his job with a bottle of booze as a companion and past time. While he is scrolling through the various missions to other planets he sees all are a failure except one. The moon world of K-23 has one mission and the crew of the Ether is still alive. As the story progresses Augustine´s mental health is clearly compromised, presumably from his long time alone without human contact of any kind. He contacts the crew of the Ether and ends up with an unlikely contact with the daughter he never got to know.

This is such a good and subtle film I can see why such a big talent like George Clooney chose to work with it. I have not read the book but it´s probably very good too. I don´t want to give away any spoilers but the twist at the end is hopeful in an unexpected way. The ending is really nice and very selfless on the part of the protagonist.

There are many great themes in the story besides the obvious environmental ones and the importance of developing space exploration industries asap. Augustine is a man who gave himself up completely to his profession and paid a hefty price for it. We see the detrimental effects of over isolation as well as the effects of giving up on the human race as a person. There is also the very relevant theme that there are fates worse than death and you have to wonder if Augustine did not end up in such a scenario.

In the story the human race is facing extinction and must rebuild someplace else. One thing I found realistic was the high failure rate of the missions. Many hypothetical papers I´ve read on the subject of a desperate push out into space predicted huge failure rates. Those are uncomfortable facts we might just have to accept at first, until we master this new space exploration industry. However, I don´t see and could never understand how the human race would be able to build itself up again with just one couple. Where´s the genetic diversity? It is possible that we are talking about a quiet fizzling out of our species where the last couple live out their lives watching the sun of K-23 set and taking long walks on the alien soil. Who knows?

Otherwise, this is a really good film and it´s definitely worth the watch so check it out.

John Ink2Quill

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