Film Review - Passengers (2016) "Passengers Take the Wheel of a Ship with No Destination"

Passengers Take the Wheel of a Ship with No Destination

                                                                                                        (Sony Pictures Entertainment)

There is nothing more thrilling to a young teenager than the first time they have the entire house to themselves for the weekend. Mom and dad away for a trip.  Siblings off with friends. Nothing but you, the TV, and all the junk food you can fit into your gob. You feel excitement of all the possibilities. For the first day. By the middle of Saturday, you are wandering the house. By the time your family arrives late Sunday night, you are desperate for human contact.  But what if that human contact never came? You were stuck in this house for the rest of your natural life.  No one to talk to.  No one new to meet.

             Just you. 

                        All. 

                                     Alone.

Passengers raises these questions when a pair of space travelers, Jim (Chris Pratt) and Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), are woken up from cryogenic sleep 90 years before they reach the destination of a new planet.  Like teens home alone, Jim and Aurora do not think of the consequences and soon after loving the freedom, they struggle to look at the ship and even each other.

Mr. Pratt and Ms. Lawrence do a remarkable job keeping the audience engaged in a a script by Jon Spaihts (collaborator on Doctor Strange andPrometheus) that does not seem to know where it wants to go.  At times it leans towards a stalker thriller as Mr. Pratt lurks over Ms. Lawrence’s shoulder believing that he is the only man she could love.  And he is…literally.  He’s the only man available.  At other times the film tries to take on a more rom-com approach as Ms. Lawrence attempts to write a new memoir about her journey through the stars with her new beau.  

At no time does the director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) give a clear indication whether we should like or dislike Jim and his manipulation of Aurora’s life.  Nor are we given a clue to whether Aurora is anything more than a plot devise for Mr. Pratt to play off of.  Ms. Lawrence is (pardon the pun) stellar, but the two-dimensional writing does not give her much to work with.

The high point is the ship itself, the Avalon, which seems to be designed after the most luxurious cruise ship in the world.  But even the ritziest of cruise ships can feel like Alcatraz after a while.  The sleek hallways and concourses run the length of the 1000-meter ship and create a sense of the grand design of the R.M.S. Titanicjuxtaposed with the sleek modern efficiency of the U.S.S. Enterprise's brig.

The outstanding Michael Sheen, as an android with a human upper half and mechanical lower half, seems to be both inn keeper and prison warden.  He provides drinks and free advice to his only two customers, but always keeps a weathered eye on his two captives.

Yet while the film raises the questions about loneliness and the desire to make human contact, it fails to answer them fully or rather, at all.  After its dramatic twist about halfway through, the film leaves the audience feeling uneasy with the romance that has blossomed betweenm and Aurora. Even with a blessing from a briefly cameo-ed Laurence Fishburn, this relationship never seems to redeem itself.  At what point does this story stop being one of a lonely guy who is persistent until he gets the girl and start becoming one of a relationship based upon lies and deceit?

I suppose the answer given by this film is never.  The plot is creepy and self-serving, never dealing with the morality of Jim's choices.  And why should they?  90 years spent in a relationship with the man who doomed you to die in space seems to be an excellent moral fairy tale every child dreams of.  An unsettling conclusion to a film that had potential to explore to full depths the despair of isolation and the dark possibilities of loneliness. But like a teenager with no adult to govern them, the filmmakers made poor choices and the only despair at the end of the film is felt by the audience wanting human contact as the leave the theater.

 

 

Title: Passengers
Release date: 21 December 2016
Director: Morten Tyldum
Writers: Jon Spaihts
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt
Rating: PG – 13
Category: Adventure, Drama, Romance
Run Time: 1 hour 56 min