Ad Astra

James Gray’s Ad Astra is probably not the film you expect it is going to be. With all the glamour surrounding space travel in films this one could easily have been swept away amongst the stars as well. However, what we actually get is a film that is more concerned with looking inwards than looking outwards to the stars.

Which is an interesting take but this also gives Ad Astra a slightly strange air about it. With all the wonders of space travel, it is the internal journey that Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) takes that fills the vast emptiness surrounding him.

Centring the story around the ever-impassive Roy, as he searches for the father he never really had the chance to know, as he attempts to save the world from Anti-Matter energy blasts thought to be coming from the long-lost mission that his father, Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) was in charge of. However, Roy’s reasons for this mission soon becomes less about protecting the Earth and more about wanting to reach out and connect with his estranged father.

Ad Astra is a visually compelling exploration of space and space travel. There are moments of excitement as we watch Brad Pitt’s Major McBride travel across the solar system to reach his father and his lost Lima mission, and they are done really impressively, especially the opening sequence and the Moon traverse. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is appealing and kinetic at times and the different planets each have their different hues to differentiate them from each other (Moon – grey, Mars – red, Neptune – blue). Eschewing the high-tech in favour of a more retro styling of attire and surroundings, it does hark back to the kitsch “space-age” gadgets and styles of 2001. And from the very opening you get hints of 2001 with a visualisation that is reminiscent of HAL’s unblinking red eye, then moving onto moments of Sunshine and/or Event Horizon as the duration of the mission and the extreme isolation take their toll on those few who embark into the vastness.

Max Richter’s score does what it is supposed to, adding weight or movement to the scenes without becoming the main attention grabber, but it also does eloquently mirror the haunting distances and empty spaces of the cosmos, when the visuals occasionally take the time to show gloriously.

One of the issues I had with Ad Astra is that the emotional core could have been more prevalent, which would give it a greater meaning. As it is, Ad Astra remains emotionally insubstantial, even with utilising the father-son relationship and also lost love for the sake of the mission/job. This connection that is being strived for either isn’t there or I didn’t feel it coming through in the narrative or the acting, making the immense journey and events feel superfluous to the story it was trying to tell. In fact there is a dearth of emotion throughout this film as the multitude of military types perform their required motions and scientists conform to the roles that they are supposed to, hardly wavering from their path.

Finding the space between arthouse and big-budget, Ad Astra might struggle to appeal to the middle ground of viewers. At times it is slowly paced with nothing much happening, at others the adrenaline ramps up and causes a brief flutter or excitement. But for the most part this is a film about what is going on in Roy’s head and, with such a steady host, at times it feels like we have been moderated to stay within the same BPM boundaries that Roy is famous for, giving a slightly flat feel to large swathes of the runtime.

Ad Astra may translate as “to the stars” but this film is far less about the cosmological travel and wonders than being about a very human, experiential journey. Brad Pitt’s performance, as the main focus of this film, is highly competent but ultimately restrained by his character. With another viewing this score may change but, for now, Ad Astra didn’t manage to engage any thoughts about bigger life-meanings, move me or thrill me enough to elicit a higher score.