"Clara" just feels like a bad remake of the 2014 gem "I Origins". However, unlike "I Origins" (a brilliant film that I would urge everyone to watch), "Clara" falls short in almost every single way.
Isaac Bruno is an unreasonably bitter astronomy professor who has a difficult time dealing with an emotionally traumatic experience from his past which meant the end of his previous romantic relationship. After being fired from his job for secretly using university equipment for his own personal research he yearns to further pursue his ultimate goal of finding habitable planets outside the solar system. Soon he is joined by Clara, his new research assistant, whose spiritual outlook on life contrasts Isaac's explicitly rational scientific views.
The shallow, unrounded characters and poor writing don't make up for the low story density and slow pacing. The romantic segments of the film seem awkwardly worked in in order to progress the story further and forcibly develop Isaac's character. I could not empathize with their relationship at all. The final act of the film doesn't compensate for any of that either and the twist was far fetched, even for sci fi standards.
A nice takeaway was that I learned a little bit about how exoplanets are discovered and studied, which was pretty well conveyed on screen.
5/10
Isaac Bruno is an unreasonably bitter astronomy professor who has a difficult time dealing with an emotionally traumatic experience from his past which meant the end of his previous romantic relationship. After being fired from his job for secretly using university equipment for his own personal research he yearns to further pursue his ultimate goal of finding habitable planets outside the solar system. Soon he is joined by Clara, his new research assistant, whose spiritual outlook on life contrasts Isaac's explicitly rational scientific views.
The shallow, unrounded characters and poor writing don't make up for the low story density and slow pacing. The romantic segments of the film seem awkwardly worked in in order to progress the story further and forcibly develop Isaac's character. I could not empathize with their relationship at all. The final act of the film doesn't compensate for any of that either and the twist was far fetched, even for sci fi standards.
A nice takeaway was that I learned a little bit about how exoplanets are discovered and studied, which was pretty well conveyed on screen.
5/10