The Midnight Sky (Clooney, 2020)
We have been watching the excellent True Detective: Night Country, and the research laboratory in episode one (whose disaster is the inciting incident for the whole drama) reminded me of the one inhabited by George Clooney in his 2020 film The Midnight Sky which I reviewed for RNZ Widescreen:
Clooney himself plays Augustine, a scientist at an Arctic research base. When his colleagues – and everyone else in the world – is evacuated because of an unspecified but probably nuclear catastrophe, he decides to stay because he is dying of cancer anyway. His mission is to contact the various interplanetary expeditions that have been sent to investigate the feasibility of colonising a planet that he has discovered and tell them not to come home because there will be nothing here for them if they do.
Meanwhile, one of the spacecraft – captained by David Oyelowo and crewed by (among others) Felicity Jones and Kyle Chandler – are getting increasingly worried about why they have lost contact with home.
…
At my house, we were captivated by this film. It’s meticulous and steady and there are interesting directorial and design choices everywhere. And Clooney is always watchable, especially in this new – acknowledging his age – phase. It’s his first feature film performance since 2016’s Money Monster.
Where to watch The Midnight Sky
Worldwide (including Canada): Streaming on Netflix
Correspondence
Subscriber DG of Vancouver, BC, replied to yesterday’s Navalny recommendation:
It is kind of weird though that as much as the doco serves to expose the lengths Putin will go to suppress any opposition and manufacture social cohesion, it also serves Putin because it makes you feel no one can stand against him and he’s all set for Leader 4 Life. And if he tells the Russia people they’re fighting Nazis in Ukraine then that’s what they’re doing… as well as fighting America. He’ll never get over the humiliation that Gorbachev’s roll back of the Soviet empire caused…and he’ll be sweet as along he keeps proving he’s reclaiming the empire and making Russia a power player again. i was interested to learn it’s only the 12th biggest world economy. In fact, Canada is bigger economically.
Which in turn reminds me that F&S has readers in many territories other than Aotearoa, so henceforward we will be including Canada in the list of “Where to watch” options for each recommendation.
