Proxima - Die Astronautin

I have to say I went in optimistic and left disappointed.

Sarah (Eva Green) is given the chance of a lifetime to go to the International Space Station for a year. The trouble is it means leaving her beloved daughter Stella (Zélie Boulant-Lemesle). The film charts her exhausting and often restrictive training whilst she tries to cope with leaving her daughter and trying to do and say the right things.

This is actually quite a simple tale, told and acted well about the relationship between mother and young daughter when pressures threaten to pull them apart. Green in excellent struggling between the two most important things in her life, whilst young Boulant-Lemesle is extremely impressive as Stella. Care, this is a straight sometimes moving drama. It is not an adventure or a sci-fi film, you've been warned, although the training is interesting.

As European cinema is not about special effects and love stories with explosions on the background, but rather about things that are real, common and confronting, this movie is anything but a disappointment if you are familiar with the style.

If you like a good book, this is a film you should watch. It's about the little things of personal interaction. About sharing precious moments, or breaking promises. ("love vs struggle")

This movie makes you reflect on yourself, as you will not always understand why your main character does what she does. How she is capable of leaving Earth being a mother.

I have read reviews about the movie being full with stereotypes and cliché's. I think the truth is quite the opposite. Russians seem to be the friendliest and most supportive people in the world. An ex-husband who is (on a distance) emotionally involved in her life. An American ex-soldier actually reciting poetry, and children acting like children.

If you rate this low, you are simply not on their level!

The movie centers on Sarah, a French astronaut undergoing training before going to the Internation Space Station, and her relationship with her somewhat sensitive daughter Stella. We alternate between her gruelling training and her difficulties being a mother at the same time. Don't expect flashy sci-fi here; the action remains firmly grounded on Earth, with most scenes either at the European Space Agency center in Cologne (looks like any adminstrative building), Germany or in the post-Soviet setting of Star City in Baïkonur, Kazakhstan. Eva Green's performance is amazing, though her role suffers a little from a less-than-realistic twist towards the end. I found Zélie Boulant, who plays little Stella, equally impressive; and the mother-daughter relationship really makes for a beautiful story. The supporting cast is also very good, I though Matt Dillon did a good job as a tough-but-fair NASA astronaut going on the same mission as Sarah. His character seemed a bit like a cliché boorish-American-guy at first, but that faded away fast enough.

It isn't a question of how flashy the sci fi is, it is a question of how interesting and challenge it is. Proxima is neither. In fact it is so didactic as to be insulting to the audience and seems to assume the audience are dullards that need repetition.