REVIEW 075hen Sally Ride was going to become the
first American woman to go to space in
1983, NASA engineers hit a wall with a
question that baffled them as much as any equation.
How many tampons should they send with her for a
one-week mission? They number they landed on
was 100.
Alice Winocour’s third feature, Proxima,
continues a conversation about the very real legacy
of astrophysicists and engineers and their struggle
to accommodate female astronauts. Eva Green plays
Sarah, an ambitious single mother to Stella (Zelie
Boulant-Lemesle). At the beginning of Wincour’s
film, Sarah’s life-long dream of going to space is
finally going to happen and she’s chosen to join the
Proxima Mission to the International Space Station.
It means months of gruelling training at the European
Space Agency in Russia before lift-off and then
separation from her daughter by the long dark reaches
of space. But there’s no hesitation: this is what Sarah
has been working towards her whole life so Stella goes
to live with her astrophysicist dad (Lars Eidinger).
Proxima draws an easy comparison to James
Grey’s Ad Astra – both films about the loss of
a parent to the darkness of space – but think
less glossy science fiction and more grounded
realism for Winocour’s film. Shot by French
cinematographer Georges Lechaptois at a real
training facility, Sarah’s world at the ESA is all
metallic monochromatic blues and greys. There’s
an emphasis on the tactile day-to-day life of a
training astronaut, with close-up shots of helmet
buckles, clips and switches.While Sarah gets to grips with the mechanics
of getting to space, she also has to deal with
her teammates: the supportive Russian, Anton
Ochievski (Aleksey Fateev) and the chauvinistic
American, Mike Shannon (Matt Dillon), who is
less enthusiastic she’s joined them. At their first
meeting, Mike jokes to the room that Sarah will
make a fine addition to the team because he’s heard
that French women are great cooks. At training,
he advises Sarah take on less preparation before
suggesting she’s a space tourist, dead weight on
his mission. While she’s batting away sexist macro
and microaggressions in her male-dominated
workplace, Sarah’s relationship with Stella is
threatening to spin out of control as parental
promises keep being broken. Green is at a career-
best as the stoic Sarah, simultaneously determined
and on the edge of breaking. So often hamming
it up in Tim Burton roles, you forget just how
exceptionally subtle she can be.
It would sell Proxima short to suggest the film
is simply a dilemma of career versus motherhood.
Rather the film is about two things from two
perspectives. For Sarah it’s about saying goodbye
and for Stella it’s about losing her mother. It’s a
melancholic film that takes its time to get to its
farewell, less showy than bigger budget parent-
in-space flicks like First Man and Gravity, but no
less moving. And unlike these films, Winocour
makes the decision to never bring us to space.
We’re left on the ground with Stella as her mother
flies into the unknown and the loss is devastating.
KATIE GOHDirected by
ALICE WINOCOUR
Starring
EVA GREEN
ZÉLIE BOULANT
MATT DILLON
Released
8 MAY
ANTICIPATION.
The writer of Mustang, Eva
Green in the lead and space
as the subject is an intriguing
combination.
ENJOYMENT.
Going to space looks really hard.
IN RETROSPECT.
Quietly devastating and an
example of Green at her best.
Proxima
W