Stowaway (Netflix): Welcome to the Claustrophobia of Space

So we’re off to Mars! In an all star cast with Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dad Kim and Shamier Anderson. The story is simple, a crew of three scientists are on a mission to Mars to set up experiments with the future hope of colonisation. However, they discover on board the ship a man who isn’t supposed to be there, he is out cold and badly injured. But in discovering our titular stowaway, the life support system is broken, they only have enough oxygen on board for two people, Dae Kim’s character can make algae produce enough oxygen for one more person. So that makes three, but there are four people on board. So here lies the premise and the stakes for the film.

Okay first thing first I have to address the casting! I love it!. I love that there is a balance of women, men and people of colour actors in this film. Honestly it ticks all the boxes for representation. Not to mention Toni Collette, plays the commander of the ship, so she is playing a leadership role. And, it’s not a position any leader wishes to be in. Space is a high stakes situation, a lot can go wrong- here everything seems to be going wrong. But the director, Joe Penna, instead of having a commander who becomes overly emotional-as is the stereotype. Wrote a female part that takes a lot of calm courage and tenacity and Collette mastered it. Thats not to say she’s emotionless, no. there are these shots of her walking down the corridors of the ship her face fraught with tension and worry, the anxiety of the situation is rolling off her in waves. And all she did was walk down a damned corridor. Bravo! Not, I briefly mentioned him but Daniel Dae Kim, he needs to do more movies. His character is decisively complex, he has worked incredibly hard to be where he is, he’s smart, hard working- everything he has done in the last three years has been to prepare for this journey to Mars. He’s a Harvard man, he even has the little Harvard flag posted next to his bed. Awww. Dae Kim’s character has a great knack for self preservation, he wants to survive. And this fourth person on board the ship poses a serious threat to everything that he has ever worked for, not to mention the safety of the rest of the crew. Okay so there’s a theory running around the inter web about Apple Watches. So the theory goes that Apple will not allow a villain in a film to wear one of their watches and suffice to say I watched the actors wrists like hawk to see ‘ooo are you the villain?!?!?’. I guess Apple don’t want to be associated with villainous persons Now we have Anna Kendrick’s character who is a bubbly doctor, she went to Yale and playfully makes fun of Dae Kim’s character who takes the rivalry between Harvard and Yale very seriously. This character is what you’d expect from a doctor, someone who wishes to preserve life or even save it. She lobbies for a way to save Shamier’s character because that is what a doctor does. To be perfectly frank. I love Anna kendrick and would watch anything she’s in without stopping to ask what the film is. I just adore her. Lastly we have our resident stowaway called Michael, he is injured and is there on the ship by mistake. He was passed out during the launch and no one thought to check to see where he was. When he wakes and realises that he is in space, he, quiet rightly, panics. He has a sister and his sister is ill and needs him. The crew are kind to him, until the worst thing happens: the life support system is broken and there isn’t enough oxygen for them all. He is the epitome of human survival and its fight, he wants to return to his sister, he survived the launch and now he just has to survive the next 2 years.

The final act of Kendrick is to climb with Dae Kim to reach the launch rocket to cypher off liquid oxygen, if there is any. The more oxygen they have, the more likely all on board are to survive. But and there is a massive but. The worst happens, there is a solar storm approaching and the radiation is lethal and in the rush to get back to the ship Kendrick looses one of the canisters of oxygen. So she goes back. In the middle of the solar storm. She gets a new canister of oxygen, but looses her life in the process. However, the rest of the team and Micheal are saved. Ooo its a gut wrenching ending, but its a nail bitter of a film. So go and watch chaps, this cast really pulls you in to the claustrophobia of space.