George Clooney‘s Netflix sci-fi drama The Midnight Sky opens with a long silent sequence atop the arctic circle at a place called the Barbeau Observatory. Onscreen text ominously states that it’s “3 Weeks after the Event” though we don’t yet know what that is. A grey-bearded man (Clooney) lumbers to a seat in a darkly-lit and empty cafeteria, staring out into the white abyss of the frozen north while we flashback to a time not long ago when those who worked and lived with him depart, choosing to die in their homes than here in the cold fields of harsh snowfall. It is established that a little girl named Anna is not with her mother, who frantically searches for as others climb aboard helicopters, though she is told the child is already on her way. In a scene just after, we see a monitor labelled “Atmos Analysis” display blood-red expanding concentric circles slowly consuming the Earth, the observatory one of the last safe places left untainted.
This is smart and visually compelling storytelling despite perhaps it being a little too on the nose, yet it sets a kind of theme for the rest of the film where Clooney, who not only stars but also directs, chooses to let what’s seen on screen have more punch than what’s said. This works in his favor for most of the runtime but by the time the finale frames arrive, dissipates all of the gravitus of what it means as we’re left with long, emotionally vacant images of a fate that literally changes everything about humanity.
I’m not sure if Clooney, who has adapted Lily Brooks-Dalton‘s 2016 novel Good Morning, Midnight is trying to lessen the mystery, but there is absolutely none to be had is piecing together the only two puzzle parts at play, though I won’t reveal what they are. We are introduced to a very small cast and recognizing who is who to whom is not all that hard, so it’s just a matter of choosing to be engaged by their singular paths in keeping up with the film as a whole. For most of the film, that’s not all that hard, especially when we are with Clooney.
He is Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist with a terminal illness. It is the year 2049 and he has spent his entire adult life in search of habitable planets for humans, a passion that has left him as isolated in his youth as it has now. He had a relationship once, we learn, with a woman he met at one of his presentations, though she leaves him for his lack of attention to her. The story tells us that they met again years later, where she confesses that she bore him a daughter and that he chose not to connect with her.
Meanwhile, in the space between Jupiter and Earth, a pregnant woman named Iris (Felicity Jones), travels with a small crew, including her partner Commander Adewole (David Oyelowo). They have just left one of the bigger planet’s moons, clearly habitable for human life and think they are returning with good news, though there is no contact from Earth. They continue onward, hoping the loss of communication is nothing serious.
Back at the observatory, Lofthouse finds he has company, that of a little girl (Caoilinn Springall) hiding in the kitchen. She doesn’t speak but is in need of someone to take care of her, a task Lofthouse initially steers away from, trying to contact someone to come back to retrieve her. Soon enough though, they are bound to each other as Lofthouse realizes he is the only hope for the returning space crew in telling them not to make entry. To do that, he must travel to the bigger communications dish, a distance that requires heading out into the wilds on a snowmobile with a fragile young child.
Okay, so you probably already see where this is going, the most basic description of it practically spelling out even the more airy of details. Still, I won’t get into the revelations and instead say that despite knowing how all the points connect, the film still felt loaded enough to keep it packed with punch. I guess “felt” is the pivot point there as the more we draw closer to the end, the more the film gets lost in its own drama. That wouldn’t be all that bad except that the screenplay by Mark L. Smith is hopelessly barren. That might have to do with how Clooney delivers it as well, the experience he must have had filming Steven Soderberg‘s 2002 remake Solaris giving him courage to be as quiet and urgent-free as possible in turning the pages here.
That’s not a dismissal, nor a call for the movie to be more action-oriented as there are a few Gravity-esque moments that give this some pulse (this is impressively visual), but the film has no heart and no true emotional connection to anchor the awesome fate of its last two people on screen, who literally tap some screens and walk out of view while a generic orchestra tune plays them out. It’s probably accurate on a technical level, but come on, who wants to get to this ending and not feel something?
I will restate that the first half of this is genuinely strong with Clooney sunken entirely into the role of a man facing the end of his life in a truly traumatic way. There are several very strong moments with the child, where we easily identify the symbolism of what Clooney is reaching for, the lineage for Lofthouse of parenthood, abandonment, guilt, and redemption. This is where The Midnight Sky excels, making use of the stillness and somber nature of the film’s plot to the best possible outcomes. It is in fact where it feels it should have stayed, the odyssey-like trek to the second antenna a bit of a metaphorical trap but perhaps necessary in driving home the point of the man’s turbulent take on his life choices. I give Clooney credit for his commitment.
I can’t say I recommend The Midnight Sky though I won’t say you should avoid it. As a filmmaker, Clooney has never tried to be anything more than functionally entertaining. His movies are all well made and carefully structured. I will say that this latest is perhaps the least impactful, for lack of a better word, the ambition behind it certainly unquestionable but the takeaway deflated.