Ad Astra is a 2019 American psychologicalscience fiction film produced, co-written, and directed by James Gray. Starring Brad Pitt (who also produced), Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland, it follows an astronaut who ventures into space in search of his lost father, whose obsessive quest to discover intelligent alien life at all costs threatens the Solar System and all life on Earth. The project was announced in early 2016, with Gray saying he wanted to feature "the most realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie". Pitt signed on to star in April 2017 and the rest of the cast joined later that year. Filming began around Los Angeles that August, lasting through October.
Ad Astra premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August29, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on September20, 2019, by 20th Century Fox.[4][5] It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for Pitt's performance.[6] The film grossed $135million worldwide against an $80–100 million budget. At the 92nd Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Sound Mixing.
Plot
In the early 22nd century, mysterious power surges threaten to destabilize human civilization. Major Roy McBride is informed that the surges have been traced to the "Lima Project", a space station in orbit around Neptune, sent twenty-nine years earlier to search for intelligent life. Roy's father, H. Clifford McBride, was the project's leader. Roy agrees to travel to Mars in an effort to determine whether the station's crew are still alive.
En route to the SpaceCom base on the Moon's far side, a band of scavenger pirates ambush Roy and his colleague Pruitt, but they manage to fight them off. Pruitt then reveals to him that should he fail to prove that the crew survived, the Lima Project station will have to be destroyed. Roy obtains passage to Mars on the SpaceCom cruiser Cepheus.
Roy tells the captain of Cepheus, Tanner, to ignore a distress signal being emitted by a biomedical research station, but the captain replies that they are bound by protocol to investigate it. The two men access the station, only to be attacked by a laboratory baboon that has gone feral. Tanner is mauled to death before Roy kills the baboon by suffocating it in an airlock. Another surge hits as the Cepheus attempts to land on Mars. Roy assumes command and calmly lands the ship. After securing himself in the underground SpaceCom complex, Roy begins recording voice messages and transmitting them to the Lima Project in hopes that Clifford will respond. After numerous attempts, SpaceCom finally receives a response, but Roy is denied permission to accompany the search party.
Roy is visited by facility director Helen Lantos, who reveals that her parents were Lima Project team members. She shows him classified footage revealing that Clifford's team mutinied and attempted to return to Earth, causing him to shut off their life-support systems; her parents were among those killed. She also admits that the Cepheus has secret orders to destroy the Lima Project with a nuclear weapon; the search party is merely a formality to keep him quiet. They decide that Roy should confront Clifford, so Lantos advises him to stow away aboard the party's rocket as it departs.
Roy climbs aboard as the rocket takes off and is immediately discovered by the crew, who are unintentionally killed in the confrontation. During the 79-day journey to Neptune, a solitary Roy reflects on his relationship with his father and with his estranged wife, Eve. He finally arrives at the station and plants the nuclear bomb before encountering Clifford, the sole survivor of the Lima Project. Clifford explains that the surges are coming from the ship's malfunctioning antimatter power source, which was damaged in the mutiny.[clarification needed] He also admits to Roy that he never really cared about his family and does not consider Earth his home.
Roy copies data gathered by the Lima Project team and persuades Clifford to accompany him back to Earth. He arms the bomb and they climb out on the station's outer hull to return to the Cepheus. Clifford suddenly launches them into space using his spacesuit's thrusters. The old man pleads for Roy to untether him so he can die amongst the stars; Roy reluctantly does so and watches his father drift away into space. He propels himself back to the Cepheus using his own spacesuit. Discovering that the ship was deliberately left without enough fuel to return home, Roy relies on the shock wave from the explosion of the bomb causing the annihilation of antimatter in the station to propel the Cepheus back towards Mars so he can alert Lantos.
The data retrieved from the Lima Project base suggests that humans are the only intelligent life in the galaxy, but also contains a treasure trove of information on exoplanets, planetary systems, and other celestial bodies in the Milky Way that could potentially aid scientific and human colonization efforts. Roy returns to Earth with a newfound optimism, meeting with his estranged wife again.
Cast
Brad Pitt as Roy Richard McBride, a major in U.S. Space Command
Tommy Lee Jones as H. Clifford McBride, Roy's father, and the Commander of the missing Lima Project
Director James Gray first confirmed his plans to write and direct Ad Astra on May12, 2016, during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.[7] In April 2017, while promoting The Lost City of Z, Gray compared the story of Ad Astra to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Gray also mentioned that he intended for the film to feature "the most realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie and to basically say, 'Space is awfully hostile to us'". Gray also confirmed that filming for Ad Astra would commence on July17, 2017.[8]
Casting
On April 10, 2017, Gray confirmed that Brad Pitt would star in Ad Astra.[9] In June, Tommy Lee Jones joined the cast to portray Pitt's lost father.[10] In August, Ruth Negga, John Finn, and Donald Sutherland joined the cast.[11][12][13]
Filming
Principal photography on the film began in mid-August 2017 in Santa Clarita, California, lasting 60 days.[14][15][16] Following poor initial test screenings, reshoots were conducted (although Pitt was unavailable), increasing the production budget from $80million to over $100million.[2]Charlie Kaufman provided an uncredited rewrite of the voice-over dialogue in the film.[17] Gray did not have control over the film's final cut, which he told The Hollywood Reporter was "as painful a thing as I have experienced outside the death of a loved one."[18]
Brad Pitt conversing with ISS astronauts via a teleconference at NASA Headquarters Space Operations Center about the film's release
Ad Astra had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August29, 2019.[23][24] It was released on September20, 2019, by 20th Century Fox.[5] It had previously been scheduled for January11, 2019, and then for May24 before being pushed back.[25]
Ad Astra grossed $50.2 million in the United States and Canada and $85.2million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $135.4million against an estimated production budget of $80million.[3]
In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside Downton Abbey and Rambo: Last Blood, and was projected to gross $15–20 million from 3,450 theaters in its opening weekend.[27][28] The film made $7.2million on its first day, including $1.5million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $19million, finishing second behind Downton Abbey.[29] The opening was compared to First Man (2018), another drama involving outer space which received high praise from critics but a lukewarm audience reception, resulting in a muted box office turnout despite its cast and budget. Deadline Hollywood deduced the film would lose $30million off a projected $150million final worldwide gross (a figure it would ultimately fall short of).[2] The film made $10.1million in its second weekend and $4.4million in its third, finishing fifth and sixth, respectively.[30][31]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 392 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Ad Astra takes a visually thrilling journey through the vast reaches of space while charting an ambitious course for the heart of the bond between parent and child."[32] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 80 out of 100, based on 56 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[33] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed at PostTrak gave it an average 2.5 out of 5 stars, with 40% saying they would definitely recommend it.[2]
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, writing, "In the hands of director and co-writer James Gray, Ad Astra is one of the most beautiful films of the year, even when it makes little sense and even when Brad Pitt's performance veers between one of his all-time best and one of his all-time not-best."[34] David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film an "A" and said, "Ad Astra is one of the most ruminative, withdrawn, and curiously optimistic space epics this side of Solaris. It's also one of the best."[35] Similarly, Xan Brooks of The Guardian gave the film five out of five stars, called it a "superb space-opera", and praised Pitt's performance, saying, "Pitt embodies McBride with a series of deft gestures and a minimum of fuss. His performance is so understated it hardly looks like acting at all."[36]Variety critic Owen Gleiberman praised Pitt's performance, explaining, "Gray proves beyond measure that he's got the chops to make a movie like this. He also has a vision, of sorts – one that's expressed, nearly inadvertently, in the metaphor of that space antenna."[4]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film four out of five stars and referred to it as "absolutely enthralling" and praised Gray for his direction and his unique approach to the science fiction genre, as well as the cinematography and Pitt's performance (whom he referred to as "marvel of nuanced feeling"). He also drew comparisons of the film's tone and themes to other notable films set in space, particularly 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Solaris (1972), Gravity (2013), and Interstellar (2014).[37]
Critic Kurt Loder praised the visual effects but criticized the lack of originality and the patchwork style of the script.[38] Adam Graham writing for The Detroit News found problems with the film, giving it a "C" rating: "This is slow, obtuse film-making with little emotional connection."[39]
