Adapting Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel ‘Good Morning, Midnight’ for his seventh directorial feature, George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky is the filmmaker’s most ambitious piece to date as he envisions a post-apocalyptic world struck by catastrophe.
It honestly doesn’t sound too far from our own reality this past year but in The Midnight Sky, Augustine (Clooney) is the last man on Earth. The world is uninhabitable but he’s terminal so he has decided to remain on the planet where he spends his days liquored up and taking on the radioactive, frozen hell outside. When he discovers a team of scientists unaware of Earth’s barren state, he has to race against the clock – and brave the elements – to warn them there’s nothing to return to. At the same time, Augustine finds that a mute girl, Iris (Caoilinn Springall), has mysteriously turned up at an abandoned space station.
Visually, this is one of Clooney’s best-looking films to date. Handsomely lensed by Martin Ruhe, the spectacle is nothing short of mesmeric as the pair capture a bleak, desolate tundra. It’s complemented by impeccable VFX and production design that gives Earth a cold, sharp aesthetic and a cosmic, elegiac score from Alexandre Desplat that brings it all together. As far as sombre sci-fi pieces go, this one is up there for cultivating a whole mood just from its technical precision. But where it excels in style, The Midnight Sky lacks in substance – a more lacklustre take on a story we’ve seen many times before.
The dynamic between Augustine and Iris is the heart of the film and while Clooney gives a convincing turn as the taciturn scientist, even drawing a strong performance from newcomer Springall on endearing form, their narrative is hardly new. Films like Logan and You Were Never Really Here have done the whole “father figure to the abandoned little girl” relationship to a more resonant effect. They have moments that feel poignant and real thanks to the authentic performances but the characterisation is too lacking to give their arc the emotional backbone it needs. A few flashbacks here and there feel too few and far between to make these characters as three-dimensional as they could be. Up in space, it’s much the same. The crew (consisting of Felicity Jones, David Oyelewo, and Kyle Chandler) have a playful banter but the writing leaves something to be desired.
Clooney, as a seasoned actor himself, knows how to get the best from his actors and, as an ensemble piece, The Midnight Sky is a showcase for a plethora of strong, likeable performances. As a spectacle, the director does well in his first big-budget endeavour to create something grandiose – utilising every penny of the Netflix budget to deliver a film that looks and feels cinematic. Sadly, the film is let down by a shopworn premise and a script that lacks any innovation in trying to elevate it above that. Clooney touches upon some important themes of environmentalism, climate change, and the self-destruction of humankind and there are some genuinely great moments of poignancy peppered throughout but it never leans into those elements enough to work. The result is an enjoyable and distracting sci-fi epic to end the year on but one that lacks the depth to truly soar.
The Midnight Sky
Summary
An enjoyable and distracting sci-fi epic to end the year on but one that lacks the depth to truly soar.
