Lucy in the sky is a first-time filmmaker's work that definitely appears as if he's got to prove something. Noah Hawley, the director, who comes from television and novels, is his first feature. The story is a real one "inspired by," which captured the morbid fascination of the country.
Many will probably remember the exploits of an astronaut driving almost non-stop about 900 miles, apparently planning to kill a fellow astronaut who had scorned her romantically. That was great news, if only because it was so strange.The detail that she might have worn adult diapers to make the trip with fewer stops- a detail denied by the astronaut- could have been considered admirably shrewd, if not for her intentions.
This film is also strange, though not quite like the real-life story. Hawley, working with Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi from a screenplay he co-wrote, could be commended for avoiding an exploitative approach to this tale. On the other hand, the story of the film seems to be so far removed from what actually happened that exploitation seems almost impossible in certain and important respects.
What we get instead is a character study of an astronaut who, having first-hand seen the great expanse of the universe (she must have excellent eyesight, considering that she is spending her only mission in space in orbit around Earth), is experiencing an existential crisis. The premise is intriguing from a philosophical perspective, although it is a bit stupid from a psychological level. With its trivial problems and monotonous routines, the everyday world must seem even more trivial and monotonous compared to the seemingly or indeed infinite.
That's Lucy Cola's dilemma (Natalie Portman, who, despite everything else, is quite good). She was in space, and things seem quite boring when she returns to her husband Drew (Dan Stevens).
Hawley has the screen shrink sideways to give us a sense of this and expand vertically from a widescreen frame to the Academy ratio boxy frame. He does this frequently and with even more extreme variations, at least twice going from the claustrophobic box to a super-wide panoramic view and once when Lucy moves around her house, the box image moves back and forth within the screen frame.
The first time Hawley does it, we get the trick point. It just turns out to be trying too hard after the second or third time. By the end of the film, we begin to wonder if the filmmaker has lost a frame concept, let alone the visual trickery's initial purpose.
Anyway, while preparing for another space mission, Lucy ends up having an affair with Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm), a fellow astronaut whom poor, nice-beyond reason Drew calls a "ladies ' man." A workaholic who became so under the tutelage of her harsh and judgmental grandmother Nana (Ellen Burstyn), Lucy continues to be driven by the idea of going back to space. In the meantime, she becomes obsessed with Mark, who also seems to have eyes for Erin Eccles (Zazie Beetz) rookie astronaut-in-training.
This is the plot. However, the story is about living inside the head of Lucy, which has to seem to Lucy about as dull and repetitive as the meager lives of people who have not been in the orbit of Earth. Maybe that's why Hawley so often shifts the aspect ratio: something has to move with a main character that static.
The screenplay mostly ignores Lucy's state of mind's philosophical dilemmas, except for characters to raise them as a way to hammer home because of the slow deterioration of Lucy's mental state. That's because the screenwriters really want us to buy into their psychoanalytic premise- that going into space can make a person go insane without question, to put it as bluntly as they do. The character has little else to explain her behaviour, except for her drive to be the best at all, which means nothing when the end goal is another trip to space and her ultimate breakdown comes when she is denied that chance.
Due to the fact that Lucy has a companion on her road trip and her motive is not about jealousy, that climatic turn is considerably altered from the true story. It's about getting back to a man who's crushing her dream - apparently like so many men who aren't in the real story.
The filmmakers pull this idea out of the blue, perhaps to give some revisionist dignity to Lucy's real-life inspiration in the sky. Whatever the reason, in a story that struggles to find any until then, it just feels like a desperate grasp of meaning.
Many will probably remember the exploits of an astronaut driving almost non-stop about 900 miles, apparently planning to kill a fellow astronaut who had scorned her romantically. That was great news, if only because it was so strange.The detail that she might have worn adult diapers to make the trip with fewer stops- a detail denied by the astronaut- could have been considered admirably shrewd, if not for her intentions.
This film is also strange, though not quite like the real-life story. Hawley, working with Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi from a screenplay he co-wrote, could be commended for avoiding an exploitative approach to this tale. On the other hand, the story of the film seems to be so far removed from what actually happened that exploitation seems almost impossible in certain and important respects.
What we get instead is a character study of an astronaut who, having first-hand seen the great expanse of the universe (she must have excellent eyesight, considering that she is spending her only mission in space in orbit around Earth), is experiencing an existential crisis. The premise is intriguing from a philosophical perspective, although it is a bit stupid from a psychological level. With its trivial problems and monotonous routines, the everyday world must seem even more trivial and monotonous compared to the seemingly or indeed infinite.
That's Lucy Cola's dilemma (Natalie Portman, who, despite everything else, is quite good). She was in space, and things seem quite boring when she returns to her husband Drew (Dan Stevens).
Hawley has the screen shrink sideways to give us a sense of this and expand vertically from a widescreen frame to the Academy ratio boxy frame. He does this frequently and with even more extreme variations, at least twice going from the claustrophobic box to a super-wide panoramic view and once when Lucy moves around her house, the box image moves back and forth within the screen frame.
The first time Hawley does it, we get the trick point. It just turns out to be trying too hard after the second or third time. By the end of the film, we begin to wonder if the filmmaker has lost a frame concept, let alone the visual trickery's initial purpose.
Anyway, while preparing for another space mission, Lucy ends up having an affair with Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm), a fellow astronaut whom poor, nice-beyond reason Drew calls a "ladies ' man." A workaholic who became so under the tutelage of her harsh and judgmental grandmother Nana (Ellen Burstyn), Lucy continues to be driven by the idea of going back to space. In the meantime, she becomes obsessed with Mark, who also seems to have eyes for Erin Eccles (Zazie Beetz) rookie astronaut-in-training.
This is the plot. However, the story is about living inside the head of Lucy, which has to seem to Lucy about as dull and repetitive as the meager lives of people who have not been in the orbit of Earth. Maybe that's why Hawley so often shifts the aspect ratio: something has to move with a main character that static.
The screenplay mostly ignores Lucy's state of mind's philosophical dilemmas, except for characters to raise them as a way to hammer home because of the slow deterioration of Lucy's mental state. That's because the screenwriters really want us to buy into their psychoanalytic premise- that going into space can make a person go insane without question, to put it as bluntly as they do. The character has little else to explain her behaviour, except for her drive to be the best at all, which means nothing when the end goal is another trip to space and her ultimate breakdown comes when she is denied that chance.
Due to the fact that Lucy has a companion on her road trip and her motive is not about jealousy, that climatic turn is considerably altered from the true story. It's about getting back to a man who's crushing her dream - apparently like so many men who aren't in the real story.
The filmmakers pull this idea out of the blue, perhaps to give some revisionist dignity to Lucy's real-life inspiration in the sky. Whatever the reason, in a story that struggles to find any until then, it just feels like a desperate grasp of meaning.