Directed By Claire Denis

Starring – Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Andre Benjamin

The Plot – Deep space outside the solar system. Monte (Pattinson) and his daughter Willow (Scarlett Lindsey and Jessie Ross, respectively) live together aboard a spacecraft, in complete isolation. A man whose strict self-discipline is a shield against desire, Monte fathered her against his will. His sperm was used to inseminate the young woman (Mia Goth) who gave birth to her. They were members of a crew of prisoners who were death row inmates. Guinea pigs sent on a mission. Now only Monte and Willow remain. Through his daughter, he experiences the birth of an all-powerful love. Together, father and daughter approach their destination: the black hole in which time and space cease to exist.

Rated R for disturbing sexual and violent content including sexual assault, graphic nudity, and for adult language

POSITIVES

– Elaborate set designs. It’s clear where the budget went with this one: in the highly detailed set pieces and intricate backdrops where roughly 90% of this movie takes place. Despite being shot with such tightness overall in photography, the variety of rooms and vibrancy in color filters, gives the ship an immense feeling of privacy, where ulterior motives lurk in the shadows of what we’re not seeing with any character at any particular time. Films aboard ships often revel in the claustrophobia of such limited surroundings, but “High Life” embraces the idea that life carries on for these prisoners, despite being virtually held against their will in a mission clouded by uncertainty, and the purpose established in the many different areas on-board proves no deficiency in scientific capabilities or living perks required to silence the sting of isolation.

– Gripping performances. Pattinson has his own gravitational presence in films. No other way to say it. This is once again another transformative performance, but one in the mentality sense, bringing forth a conflicted protagonist who is very much a wild card when it comes to his troubled past, which now leads to the shaky interactions with the crew in the present. Robert’s delivery feels very in-tune with the person spending a lengthy trial far from human civilization, and the nuance delivery that deep down tugs through a war of hopelessness that the character is juggling with within himself. Also in tow is a physically demanding performance from Binoche, who looks on over this cast of misfits as the poke that constantly keeps them in arms. As usual with movies concerning prisoners, it’s the authority that is the true menace, and Juliette’s dry delivery, complimented by an unflinching, blank stare, surrounds her with a sense of dangerous authority that we know we should fear, despite never seeing a single weapon or restrictive object of enforcement throughout the entire film.

– Lack of special effects. My biggest praise of Denis’ direction is her decision to make everything from the gravitational pull that the character’s experience, to the G-force endurance in speed, authentic in its manufacturing, giving the movements throughout the ship a feel of honesty that most space movies made today try to speed through in order to avoid complications. The cast and crew were put through a rigorous test of physical exertion that equally told the story on the facial registries of the actors, and stood as the lone adversary that they couldn’t act their way out of. I admire an immersive production like this for the way the ideal surroundings better engage the intensity of the performances, and Claire’s experienced hand constructs a world that is normally millions of miles away from our own, and grounds it in reality so that we visually convey what is transpiring in the uncertainty of the darkness that lurks outside of their shift, and it proves that some acting jobs require a bit more than audibly becoming a character for a few weeks.

– Revealing introduction scene done right. My biggest pet peeve in modern day films is even done superbly, as the initial images when the film opens visually communicates that the majority of this crew have paid the ultimate price in scientific discoveries, but as what should be expected with a scene like this, there’s more that meets the eyes. A scene this cryptic and ambiguous left construing my own theories about where the story was headed, and as I found out, I was satisfyingly wrong about those assumptions for the better of the film’s shock factor. Once you know the whole story, those early images, as well as Monte’s mental psyche, are given layers of depth to play into our understanding of what transpired, and it proves that even with a scene so revealing in the backs of our minds, that sometimes the truth is something far more unexpected than our minds could even interpret.

– Inescapable sound mixing. Without atmospheric audio overstepping the sanctity of isolation, a space movie is doomed, and thankfully the cutting and pacing done here by some highly qualified technicians remains as consistent as the gravitational rules introduced early on in the first act. My favorite scenes in particular are the ones where Pattinson’s Monte in suited up in a spacesuit, colliding with the audibly immense volume of space, only for us the audience to hear nothing, since Denis instead puts us front-and-center in the shoes of her depicted protagonist, and it gives an immersive quality to the scene that helps us better interpret Monte’s mission without using anything as corny or overdone as Point-of-view sequence. The sound here is the established blanket that continues to smother, no matter how drowning out the events inside of it seem, and its continued presence gives reminder to where we are, even when the depth and space inside of the ship can sometimes fool us into thinking that normal everyday life exists within it.

– Interpretive pallet. Denis herself has commented that the movie is about “Tenderness in space. It’s about truth, fidelity, and sincerity”, and while those themes are certainly evident by the many interior adversities that this crew face for being trapped inside for so long, I found a few others that brought a thought-provoking poignancy to the film’s material. Themes like personal desires, desires, passions, motivations to keep going, and the choices we make having an intended consequence on us because of such. With so many psychological questions like these, it’s no secret that “High Life” compares these themes in a setting so far from our own, and boils them in a pot together to ask the question if they can still exist despite the circumstance. The answer is an overwhelming yes, and it’s unique and even life-affirming to watch each of them play out when everything else we’ve come to know and expect in our own definitions of life has been stripped down and reduced to the bare minimum aboard this ship of no rights and all responsibilities.

– Time distinguishing. “High Life” is told with a non-linear style of storytelling that depicts as many as three different time periods being played off simultaneously, and something that inclusive can get confusing if the right visual steps aren’t taken, an aspect that this film has in spades thanks to some personal touches of production creativity that can be missed if you blink. For one, the plants inside of the ship’s garden double in size during the later scenes, giving an overcrowded feeling to the once maintained eco-life. The second is Monte’s hair color giving way to an aging grey. I do have some problems with the aging process in the film, which I’ll get to later, but it’s clear with how big these grey patches are that an ample amount of time has passed, further allowing us to distinguish what particular timeline we currently exist in. The final is the cinematography inside of the ship. During the earlier timeline aboard, there’s a sense of vibrancy and livelihood aboard, but in the latest timeline imagery of scattered props and a much more visually convoluted atmosphere overtakes our focus, and visually echoes what we slowly learn about the crew and this ship, with how it’s come upon some uphill climbs for each of them respectively. This is very much an artsy film that won’t appeal to mainstream audiences, and if you don’t appreciate the craft of filmmaking, you won’t care much for the technical achievement that is the central focus here.

NEGATIVES

– Sluggish pacing. In telling this story out of order with the non-linear style fashion that I mentioned earlier, the first act of the film struggles greatly with hooking up from the start, showing us only Monte and his baby daughter as they live life alone on this ship. It’s a dry period of storytelling that takes a lot of time to get you used to conditions in their life, without any use of accommodating information for a good 30 minutes before the rest of the timelines get going. Likewise, the script has difficulty telling multiple plots of suspense simultaneously to build the tension long-range for a big payoff. It seems like the film brings up a conflict, follows through with it, then settles it. Wash, rinse, repeat. It hinders the film from maintaining the consistency of momentum, and makes for a dry transition in between these scenes of extreme graphic detail that feel so forced and foreign from the sum of its parts.

– Uneven aging process. During the third act, we begin to see Monte’s daughter as a teenager, and what this does is establish how many years the duo have been in space, especially considering time is slowed down up there. If she’s arguably fifteen in this timeline, then they’ve probably spent roughly thirty years in space at this point, and it brings forth a problem with her male counterpart that not only lacks believability, but also doesn’t line up with the progression of time inside of the story. Monte has a bigger grey patch, sure, but that’s it. No wrinkles or sagging skin, not even the slightest attempt at production make-up, nothing. It’s a missed opportunity for a film that did its homework up to that point, and would rather deviate from the gravity associated with the passing of time, rather than to make its cute leading man lack familiarity in his physical appearance.

– Anti-climatic ending. This will probably be the biggest grounds for debate in the film, as the ambiguous final images leaves much interpretation for the audience to fill in the blanks. My problem with this particular case is the leaving to imagination never matches up to the build and suspense earned by the last ten minutes of this movie, where these character’s risk it all for a chance at life. Most audiences will wait to see the answer inside of this dimension of mystery, and be disappointed for the note that the film concludes on with providing those answers. Self-interpretation is one thing, but a total lack of resolution with a character (Monte) who I was firmly invested in, feels like a cop-out. Last images are everything to open-ended movies, and the one we’re left with here definitely had me wanting more, but the sudden appearance of post-movie credits forced the air of suspense to diminish slowly with an inescapable feeling of unresolved disappointment.

My Grade: 7/10 or B-