Ad Astra

Space as a mood

James Gray is a singular American filmmaker in that his movies are about men’s interior lives, whereas most American movies are about men and their toys. Gray has gone from chamber pieces in his old neighborhood of Brighton Beach (Little Odessa), to the Amazonian jungle (The Lost Story of Z), and now all the way to Neptune to tell the stories of men with feelings.

Even though Ad Astra takes place in future Earth, the Moon, deep space, Mars and Neptune, it really takes place in the weary heart of Roy McBride (a melancholy Brad Pitt). We are in the post Star Wars age of sci-fi movies where astronauts bring their prosaic problems with them to space (in Gravity and Interstellar astronauts fret about the whiny kids they left on Earth). Few of these movies stop to consider what kind of state of mind one experiences by being in space. In The Martian, Matt Damon is too busy planting potatoes to realize he is all alone in Mars. This being a James Gray movie, deep space serves as a metaphor for the space inside us. The universe feels as forlorn, empty and inscrutable as a battered human heart. At least Gray understands that space cannot only motivate pedestrian feelings.

In Ad Astra, the family problem actually takes place in space. The premise can give a cynical soul pause: McBride has been tasked as the only person on Earth who can successfully search for his father…