Native is a 2018 sci-drama about two scientists who are selected to travel across the universe to the source of a distant transmission and potential life.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite things about a good science fiction mind-bender is being dropped into a world I can’t immediately understand, forced to pay attention in any hopes of deciphering whatever the heck is going on. Techno-babble and odd imagery, impenetrable early plotting and strangely motivated characters hook me like the sundae bar at the local buffet. To be sure, Daniel Fitzsimmons‘ feature length debut ticks these boxes right from the start and then never quite stops doing so, telling a truly enigmatic story of heady sic-fi stuff, one that is surely going to repel most looking for a trippy space thriller. This is bold, unconventional filmmaking that leaps well over the norm, challenging viewers to stick with it, even when most will probably not.
On a distant world, two scientists, Cane (Rupert Graves) and Eva (Ellie Kendrick) board a starship to seek out a strange musical sound that has entered their atmosphere, their mission one of far reaching implications. Highly-advanced, most communication is made telepathically among the people of their home planet, to which both Cane and Eva, now well out into the great expanse of space, are linked. On their journey, they study the odd sounds, trying to understand what it is and what it means, slowly learning more about its source and the people who may have sent it, highly influencing Cane in dangerous ways. Worse though, they hold within them a catastrophic virus that when unleashed, spells doom for those they are seeking.
It’s no surprise that Cane and Eva are not humans in the sense that we know them, or that they are at all familiar with what it means to be from Earth, even as they are clearly human in appearance. This visual trickery is what keeps much of the film feeling decidedly uneasy, their behaviors and interactions alien to us even as they seem so, well, human. What makes it all the more clear that they are not what we originally suspect is the short musical transmission that is repeated throughout, one that most will recognize immediately, making their eventual destination all the more impactful.
Often times, Native is frustratingly unreachable, playing this little game of push me pull you with its languid pace, the film mostly set in a few dark and angular rooms of the ship as the two leads speak in monotone back and forths, sometimes using only their minds instead of their voices. What we get to though is an eventual understanding, as Cane undergoes a steady evolution, breaking from the hive mind status quo of his people and subtly connecting with those he is instructed to destroy. The consequences are dire.
Watching Native is like a trying to solve a complex quantum based science experiment with a single Post-it Note and a crayon … and you don’t know what science is. Fitzsimmons and co-writer Neil Atkinson are on a mission and even as we might think (or hope) we know where it’s going, it keeps to the left, always one or two steps off from the norm. This doesn’t make it a bad movie, though undoubtedly, most are going to grow weary of the stripped down, minimalist approach. I appreciate Fitzsimmons’ vision and was rather taken by the last act, this significantly more engaging than the start, which is so opaque it teeters on off-putting. This is an uncommon film experience and it’s probably worthy to offer a little warning to those thinking of checking this out hoping for an action-oriented space thriller. Do I recommend it? I’ll steer clear of such absolutes, but if you enjoy independent brain twisters, this might be one to try.