3022 is a 2019 science fiction film about a group of astronauts living in deep space who awake to find something terrible has happened back home.
It’s the year 2190 and the United States is beginning its ten-year term to man the Pangea, a space station serving as a link between Earth and Europe One, Jupiter’s third moon, where the first off-world human colony has been established. Time passes, and the American crew bond and make what they can of a life isolated in the dark recesses of space. Five years in, things are breaking down though, the captain of the crew, John Laine (Omar Epps), like many others, feeling the effects of the mission, with the doctor claiming most are no longer fit for service. Then, the station is subject to a powerful external event that causes distressing failures throughout. When it’s over, they can’t make contact with Earth … and as it becomes clear why, all hope seems lost.
Director John Suits‘ claustrophobic, stylish space thriller is a curious little film. Set entirely on a cramped space station soaked in heavy shadows and cones of hazy neon lights, this a film with a decidedly troubling idea, though not entirely without some cinematic history behind. Either way, it’s a frightening possibility where those in the vast expanse of space are left entirely alone, left to rely on each other to survive in a future that seems devoid of light.
While a major studio might produce an epic, visual effects-laden spectacle of devastation and chaos, Suits, directing a story by Ryan Binaco, opts for a more psychological approach, leaving the cataclysm unseen so the personalities take center stage. While this is a dialogue-heavy experience, it’s not without tension, as conflicts naturally arise in the wake of people already mentally stressed now forced to deal with an unimaginable fate.
In telling the story, the plot has us skipping about in time to dots on the calendar unknown leaving us to watch as that troubling future builds. With Laine is Jackie Miller (Kate Walsh), a mother who left her daughter back on Earth, Richard (Angus Macfadyen), the ship’s doctor, and Lisa Brown (Miranda Cosgrove), a young scientist. Each are on a clock so-to-speak as resources are not infinite and fate dealing with each.
Drawing its temperament and tone from the likes of Solaris (1972) and taking a few liberties perhaps in the science of it all, the success of 3022 comes from its characters, and the film’s bleak commitment to the madness. This ends up becoming a treatise of sorts on humanity with the station itself symbolic of Earth, and while it doesn’t hold together as tightly as maybe it could, and Suits’ choice to keep most shadowed in a prevailing darkness, there’s a lot about where it all takes us that remains undeniably compelling. This is meant to be a moody, atmospheric tragedy, its high production values and sturdy performances greatly helping in making this a solid work of true science fiction. Recommended.