Review: Stowaway
Recently it seems that everyone in Hollywood is going to space: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and more or less everyone involved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the new feature film Stowaway, it is four new stars’ turn to explore the final frontier, and they bring with them all the melodrama of any Earth-grounded film. Director Joe Penna uses the speculative format of science fiction to postulate a worst-case scenario that might occur beyond the bounds of Earth’s atmosphere, placing his characters in an unimaginable and morally impossible situation which they must navigate through to save their own lives.
The film follows three astronauts – Captain Marina Barnett (Toni Collette), the botanist David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim), and the ship’s medic Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick) – on their mission to Mars. Roughly twelve hours after their launch from Earth, the team discovers a launch mechanic named Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson) trapped in a small space in the ship’s ceiling where the carbon dioxide filtration device is stored. They nurse him back to health and learn that he was unknowingly stranded on the ship after experiencing a severe concussion that left him unconscious during the launch. The ship, originally intended to accommodate two people, pushing its limits by allowing three, certainly does not have enough oxygen for four, and with the carbon dioxide filtration system permanently damaged, they resort to drastic measures to find or create enough oxygen to live.
There is always an element of suspended disbelief in science fiction, and delving into the scientific accuracy behind every detail usually culminates in a self-sabotaged viewing experience. That said, there are instances in which the logic behind plot progressions falls short to a noticeable degree, undermining the effectiveness of the narrative as a result. In Stowaway, there are unfortunately a plethora of plot holes that render the ultimate tragedy of its conclusion unnecessary, the most overt being the nature of Michael’s entrapment on the spaceship in the first place; Barnett discovers him when she unscrews the bolts in the ceiling panel, meaning that for Michael to have been stranded on the ship, someone would have had to physically trap him in the ceiling section.
However, stylistically the film successfully forms a space drama without leaning too heavily on the grandiose spectacle of space as many other films do. With a cast of only the four members between the space team and the stowaway, the film is quite simplistic in nature, very much reminiscent of director Duncan Jones’s 2009 film Moon. We get hints of the ground team, generally through the disembodied voice of a head scientist named Jim, but the narrator is wholly focused on the four main leads. The majority of the film takes place within the elegantly sculpted interior of the spaceship, with the exception of Zoe and David’s expedition up the 450 meter long tethers to the ship’s launch vehicle. This interior is emblematic of a quintessential spacecraft, detailed and entirely interactive, with airlocked chambers and walls lined with thick cords and high-definition monitors. Yet, in terms of location, it is quite a basic, and even minimalist, layout, with David’s lab, the crew’s lodgings, and the outlook area appearing often as recurring spaces in which many of their discussions take place. In short, the ship is cramped, all the more so with the addition of Michael on the crew, a feeling which is frequently amplified by Penna’s use of low angles, which allow the actors to appear taller in their environments, thus further constricting their physical space on screen.
Despite its relative simplicity, the film still retains the necessary element of cosmic horror, projecting this feature through its visual depiction of the vastness of space. When Zoe and David climb the tethers between the spaceship’s main body and its launch vehicle, they are essentially floating in the void of space, grounded only to the thin poles up which they ascend, and while the sight is awe-inspiring, it is also utterly terrifying. Should they lose their footing and float away from the tethers, they would certainly be doomed, lost within the infinite absence surrounding them.
The performances of both Kendrick and Kim contribute to this sense of cosmic horror, for as they leave the safety of the main ship, they must overcome the fear they feel for the sake of their lives. The character of David, already established as having motion sickness in space, has immense difficulty climbing the tethers, much more so than Zoe. As they climb, David’s breathing is ragged and heavy, a sign of both his physical exertion and anxiety the further they move from the ship. Although Zoe is more composed in relation to David, her breathing becomes more laborious as well, to the point where, in the climactic scene in which they race back to the ship to escape an imminent and lethal coronal mass ejection heading their way, she is all but hyperventilating.
Kendrick’s presence in particular stands out throughout the film; as the youngest member of the crew, her bubbly personality captivates both the audience and the other members of the spaceship, and she serves as a moral compass of sorts, obstinately insisting on doing everything she possibly can to save Michael along with her other crew members. Each character has their own complex narrative, yet Zoe dominates the film, for between her, David, and Barnett, she is the only one to exhibit the heroic qualities and ideology normally associated with any given protagonist. It is for this reason that her sacrifice at the end of the film has such a poignant impact on the viewer.
While there are certainly some gaps in the writing that contribute to an unfortunately distracting level of skepticism in the overall narrative, Penna succeeds in crafting a simultaneously spectacular and tragic through his artistic vision. It is not a comforting film, nor even an introspectively inspiring film, but it is a fascinating take nonetheless on the budding genre of the space-drama in cinema.