Butler's Cinema Scene

George Clooney, Caoilinn Springall

“THE MIDNIGHT SKY” My rating: B (Netflix)

122 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

End-of-the-world movies are invariably downers.

“The Midnight Sky” is “The Road” and “Melancholia”-level depressing.

So it’s a testament to the directing and acting chops of George Clooney that this long slow journey to extinction not only hooks us early but keeps us on the line as things just keep getting worse.

Clooney’s achievement is doubly impressive when you consider that “Midnight Sky” relies on a “Six Sense”-ish last-reel revelation that may leave some viewers feeling just a tad violated.

Mark L. Smith’s screenplay (adapted from Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel Good Morning, Midnight)  begins in 2049 with the evacuation of a polar observatory.  The 200 or so residents of this snowbound outpost are being helicoptered out because of “The Event,” an unexplained phenomenon that is spreading a cloud of death around the planet.

Just one man, the grizzled Augustine Lofthouse (Clooney), will remain behind. He’ll have enough food and fuel to last for months, but probably won’t need them. He’s undergoing chemotherapy; what he’s got isn’t going away.

Augustine has a mission. He’s determined to contact a manned spacecraft returning from one of Jupiter’s moons.  Decades earlier the young Augustine (played in flashbacks by Ethan Peck) identified said moon as likely to sustain human life. He was right; the five astronauts returning to Earth found a welcome environment on that distant orb.

These interstellar travelers must be warned of Earth’s fate so that they can return to Jupiter orbit and, hopefully, start the human race all over again.

Problem is, the crew (Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir, Tiffany Boone) are been unable to hail their contacts on Earth.  We know it’s because of The Event, but the astronauts assume their communication equipment has a glitch.

Felicity Jones

“The Midnight Sky” spends half its time on Earth with Augustine, half in outer space.

Up on the icecap, Augustine discovers he’s not alone. A little girl (Caoilinn Springall) has been left behind. Initially Augustine is frustrated at having to care for this child, who refuses to say a word. Later she becomes his companion on a dangerous cross-country trek across the glaciers to a radio tower capable of sending a signal deep into space.

Yeah, there’s some bonding going on, though Clooney keeps things from slipping into the saccharine.

On the ship the flyers dream of home (aided by holograms recorded before their departure).  Communications specialist Sully (Jones) and the captain, Adele (Oyelowo) look forward to the birth of their child. (Jeeze…you’d think NASA would think about birth control on a multi-year mission.)

For a film steeped in doom, the yarn has several effective “action” sequences.  Some involve Augustine’s dangerous journey across the icecap.  And there’s a killer EVA episode outside the spaceship that is so tense many will be picking fingernail shreds out of their incisors. (It weirdly echoes another space disaster in “Gravity,” which also featured Clooney.)

In the end, there is less to “Midnight Sky” than meets the eye. But what’s there is still pretty compelling.

| Robert W. Butler