Page 11 - MidWeek - May 5, 2021

MAY 5, 2021 MIDWEEK 11
Rotten
PAPAYAS
BY CHRIS MCKINNEY
A Morality Play In Space
There’s a fairly well- known thought ex- periment called the trolley problem. Imagine a trolley barreling on its rails, headed for five incapacitated people. You’re standing next to a lever. You can redirect the trolley, but you’ll crush one person if you send the train down the alternative path. What do you do?
People bring up this thought experiment when it comes to things like driver- less cars and even vaccines. Is greater good for the most number of people always the right thing to do?
Daniel Dae Kim plays one of three astronauts who, along with an engineer, face a life-or-death dilemma in Stowaway. PHOTO COURTESY NETFLIX VIA AP
Netflix’s new feature film, Stowaway, delves into a sim- ilar moral conundrum. Three astronauts (Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim and Anna Kendrick) are headed to Mars. An engineer (Shamier Anderson) was knocked out during launch and mistaken- ly abandoned aboard the ship. There’s only enough oxygen for three people to survive the remainder of the voyage. What’s the right thing to do?
Another thing that stands out in this film is the acting. Make no mistake, they need to be good. It’s just four peo- ple crammed on a spaceship. There are no lasers or aliens, and we don’t get to see the team of rocket scientists back on Earth racing to figure a way out of this predicament. In fact, this film could almost be a play. It was smart to cast Collette, Kim and Kendrick. All three have theater expe- rience and have the chops to carry a story with a sparse set- ting. Anderson is equally up to the task. All four hit the mark.
very notable differences. This film lacks the frantic pace (and the upbeat disco soundtrack) of the Ridley Scott film star- ring Matt Damon. It’s not as big (The Martian had an in- credible ensemble cast), and it doesn’t aim for humor. Also, just so you know, it doesn’t solve the trolley problem. In fact, what the film seems to be saying is the trolley problem may look easy to solve until you’re actually standing next to the lever.
The film doesn’t preach, and it resists the temptation to devolve into Survivor in space.
The first thing I appreciated about this film is its claustro- phobic setting. Space travel has often been romanticized as a sort of roomy cruise ship adventure to the beyond, but in reality, I imagine it’s just as confining as being aboard a submarine.
The film doesn’t preach, and it resists the temptation to devolve into Survivor in space (though that might’ ve been interesting, too). The movie may move a bit too slowly for some viewers, but I liked the pacing. It made the film feel more realistic. It’s not as if you can sprint in zero gravity, and solutions hardly ever have perfect timing.
A student of mine who’s a Navy vet once told me that when you’ re on a sub, ev- erything is trying to kill you. With its creaks, rattles and the vast darkness of inhospitable space, Stowaway director Joe Penna does an excellent job of recreating this bare-boned, potentially lethal atmosphere.
Because it’s “hard sci-fi” (sci-fi that tries hard to follow the rules of science), Stow- away best compares to The Martian, but there are some
Stowaway is an impressive film whose greatest virtue — believability — may be to some viewers its worst ene- my.
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