High Life

The movie works only as a metaphor of the universe: empty and meaningless.

Claire Denis' 'High Life' is undoubtedly better on paper than it is on the screen. One has to assume that the script includes certain details like what "The Box" is, or clarify the discrepancy between the fates of the astronaut's bodies early on versus what we're shown throughout the movie.

Despite the film's limited dialogue, many of the lines feel bizarrely stilted, as if there was a problem in the French-to-English translation regarding the emotional meaning of what Denis was hoping to convey.

As a result, Denis has ultimately made a film that is just interesting enough to keep the audience's attention the entire time, but lackluster enough for them to never really care. Worse, the last twenty minutes are so packed with logical flaws that 'High Life' crashes into its final destination rather than ending on anything that resembles a high note, sadly wasting another superb performance by Robert Pattinson whose time and effort could have been better spent on something else.

Grab your specimen jar and a bag of popcorn, because you're in for one heck of a ride. Does it make sense? Well, no. Is it slow moving and tedious. Yeah, but it.has it's moments. Would I recommend it. Sure knock yourself out! It's like a one night stand that you'll live to regret, but seemed a good idea at the time. There may be some hidden messages, so try to stay awake! Is there hidden esoteric messaging? Or is it just a cautionary tale about blue balls? Well, you're just going to have to muster up the courage to take a leap of faith right into.a black hole. It'll be well worth the two hours you'll never get back. Thank me later <3.

I've heard of Claire Denis but shamefully have never seen any of her work. I liked the trailer for this film. It seemed like a high concept space thriller, which as you know is something that is in my wheelhouse. I also have faith in everything A24 produces so I had to see this as soon as it came out. Having watched it the film is certainly visually arresting and quite disturbing. I'm not sure it fully meets what I was hoping for but Denis's film is thought provoking and asks questions of what humans in loneliness would do when on the brink of madness.

The film is about a space crew consisting of criminals and their mission of going towards a black hole to find a new energy source. The space crew soon realize that the doctor on the ship has some alternative ideas that include invasive sexual procedures meant to create life. I'm still not exactly certain on the solidity of that plot but this is the general gist. Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche lead with supporting performances from Andre 3000 and the always lovely Mia Goth.

There's talent on display in High Life. Pattinson is a very solid actor as could be seen from his other A24 feature, Good Time. The film looks like an authentic look into a space ship and I thought the film possessed some brilliant cinematography and camera handling. I especially liked the look of the black hole and the actions that occurred when approaching the black hole. I like when science fiction films (space ones namely) maintain the integrity of science and that seemed to be the case here.

The film borders on being very out there almost drifting off in plot like the bodies in space. What we see though is a fairly disturbing sexually charged mission in space with characters descending into utter madness and chaos. The film is definitely reminiscent of other space films before it but Denis strives to set it apart. I think its an impressively made film though it doesn't always work for me. It may require another watch to fully grasp and comprehend what Denis tried to go for.

6.5/10

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library. We had high hopes based on some DVD box comments but in the end we were disappointed. It wasn't a total loss but we got so little for the time invested.

As is explained in the DVD extras the writer/director does not like to spell everything out, she wants the viewers to extrapolate and interpret. As a result the movie is rather deliberate and not everything makes sense.

It is a space mission outside our Solar system, presumably to study reproduction during space travel and also to travel to the vicinity of a black hole to see if its energy can be harvested for Earth use. But to get there they have to travel for years at 99% the speed of light, communications with Earth no longer possible, and even if they were successful with the black hole how would the energy be transported?

So the science and physics is very shaky, however only there for a setting for the story, most of which is how a bunch of criminals would interact on a long, secluded journey if all their survivals depended on it?

The movie has some interesting elements but overall we found it to be a big miss, not worthy of the almost 2 hours to view it.