End of civilization movies have been a potent genre of cinema since the 1980s, with at least a couple appearing every year. Recently I’ve seen several, the most high profile of them being The Midnight Sky, directed by and starring George Clooney. It even nabbed an Oscar nomination for Visual Effects, for its space scenes of a spaceship returning to Earth, unaware of the nuclear holocaust that has taken place. But for all its class and pedigree, this film is surprisingly tedious and unconvincing.
George Clooney’s film begins three weeks after “the incident,” as scientists leave an Arctic outpost to go back home to their families — if they still exist. (Returning to family is a powerful theme throughout this tale). Augustine (Clooney), however, finds a young girl left behind (Caoilinn Springall) and takes her with him further north, to a more powerful radio facility, in hopes of contacting the spaceship Aether before it returns to Earth. The Aether astronauts (Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Demian Bichir, Kyle Chandler, Tiffany Boone) are concerned by the lack of communication with Earth, but unaware of the calamity.
“The Incident” is never explained, other than a map that shows multiple sites of what are presumed to be nuclear explosions across the United States and the rest of the world. It is never discussed in detail, even when the astronauts finally contact Augustine. Such ambiguousness helps the film stretch its drama for almost two hours, but it bugs me, especially when no one reacts with thoroughly understandable anger or rage upon learning that the human world is coming to a close. Scientists wouldn’t be upset? Give me a break. The other troublesome issue revolves around the girl, who doesn’t speak. Her ultimate fate is understandable thematically but not dramatically; it seems like a cheat to me.
It is not a new notion to project human civilization ending with a whimper, but I expect more from a movie of this magnitude. The people act like symbols rather than fully functioning people. Every decision is calm and rationalized. Sorry, people are not like that, especially when their world comes crumbling down. It’s one thing not to show the chaos that undoubtedly was taking place everywhere else, but to ignore it in the Arctic, where desolation and loneliness is overwhelming, is a dramatic mistake. ☆ ☆. 31 July 2021.
By the way, better post-apocalyptic films that I’ve seen lately include Z for Zachariah (2015, with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie and Chris Pine), I Think We’re Alone Now (2018, with Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning), A Quiet Place, Part II (2021, with Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Millicent Simmonds), and especially How it Ends (2018, with Theo James and Forest Whitaker), which I found quite powerful in its attention to detail and convincing portrayals of human nature in crisis.