Pretty disappointed in this one. While Natalie Portman's performance is excellent, as is Jon Hamm's, nothing could save this mess of ideas from itself.
Lucy Cola comes back from space and can't adjust to the smallness of her life. Her husband can't understand. It seems like maybe Mark, a fellow astronaut who's done more tours that she has, does, so Lucy begins an affair with him. But Lucy's displacement is making it hard for her to stay grounded, per se, and she slowly delves into her own madness. There are side storylines about Lucy's take-no-prisoners grandmother and how Lucy became as strong as she did, as well as Lucy's teenaged niece, who is staying with them. But basically, the story is threadbare. It should have relied on strong characters. But nothing felt very authentic to me - not the emotions, not the way the characters reacted. For a film that seemed to be celebrating, or at least admiring Lucy's strong work ethic in a man's world, I felt that the filmmakers dove a little dangerously into archetypal female reactions at times.
There were a few moments when the form follows function aspects of the filmmaking (letterboxing to widescreen, fisheye lens, background sound) worked very well, and more moments where it was completely incongruous to the story and felt like the filmmakers were just trying to make something artsy and cool (superimposing the moments over the stars, so cheesy; conveyor belt for hospital scene). In the end, the whole thing just didn't hold together and the themes seemed muddled at best. Wish I'd liked this more.
Lucy Cola comes back from space and can't adjust to the smallness of her life. Her husband can't understand. It seems like maybe Mark, a fellow astronaut who's done more tours that she has, does, so Lucy begins an affair with him. But Lucy's displacement is making it hard for her to stay grounded, per se, and she slowly delves into her own madness. There are side storylines about Lucy's take-no-prisoners grandmother and how Lucy became as strong as she did, as well as Lucy's teenaged niece, who is staying with them. But basically, the story is threadbare. It should have relied on strong characters. But nothing felt very authentic to me - not the emotions, not the way the characters reacted. For a film that seemed to be celebrating, or at least admiring Lucy's strong work ethic in a man's world, I felt that the filmmakers dove a little dangerously into archetypal female reactions at times.
There were a few moments when the form follows function aspects of the filmmaking (letterboxing to widescreen, fisheye lens, background sound) worked very well, and more moments where it was completely incongruous to the story and felt like the filmmakers were just trying to make something artsy and cool (superimposing the moments over the stars, so cheesy; conveyor belt for hospital scene). In the end, the whole thing just didn't hold together and the themes seemed muddled at best. Wish I'd liked this more.