Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, it sets a perfectly
unnerving mood, and every day Pattinson has to
convince a low-tech computer that he is healthy
enough and the ship is stable enough to justify
systems running for another 24 hours. It’s an
existential chore to say the least.
Pattinson, as a character named Monte, doesn’t
have much dialogue to work with. But there is a
world of fear and anxiety in his eyes as he tries
to tend to the needs of the creaky old ship and
the adorable little infant in his care, soothing her
through a speaker as he tries to fix something
outside the ship. He has a few flashbacks to a
moment in his youth on a grey fall day with a
young girl and a dog near a desolate pond in the
woods, but it will take some time for the film to
reveal what happened then and why it’s relevant.
Although it is oddly peaceful and compelling
watching Monte and this baby, Willow (played
by Scarlett Lindsey), go through their routine,
which requires some inventiveness to deal with
some of her bodily functions, eventually you
start to itch for the why and the how and Denis
doesn’t disappoint with her patient reveals. First,
you realize, there was other crew on board, but
they’ve all died. Then things get even weirder
— just take a peek at the rating description
and you’ll start to see why, however it certainly
doesn’t compare to the visceral horror of
watching much of that transpire.
It seems a little strange that a Denis movie might
contain spoilers, but it also feels wrong to describe
in detail what happened before Monte and Willow
were the only ones left. Suffice it say, Monte
was part of a strange program with inmates, all
testy and violent and withdrawn in their own