Proxima

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

Proxima is a very sincere, intimate and devoid of pathos cinema. This is the psychological portrait of a woman devoted to her dream of flying into space. When the main character approaches her goal, she begins to understand how difficult it will be to leave the planet. The picture is more like a documentary than a science fiction story. Great Eva Green and good pictures of the Bajkonur spaceport deserve praise.

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!

POSITIVES:

1) All the scenes with Eva Green's character, Sarah, and her daughter, Stella, are emotional and fantastic 2) I respected the film for not "Hollywoodising" its subject matter 3) There is a scene near the end where Sarah and Stella are talking through a glass shield and Stella's face reflects over Sarah's on the other side of the glass and it was such a beautiful shot

NEGATIVES:

1) I wasn't engaged at all by any of the scenes of Sarah's astronaut training 2) Matt Dillon's character was very cliche and underdeveloped 3) There is no score until the final 15 minutes and that made the film quite boring and not cinematic 4) The film doesn't really have any kind of purposeful story, it's a bit pointless 5) Despite going to a 1:20pm screening I genuinely felt my eyes closing at times

Apparently the writer thinks that only female astronauts are parents. Either that, or male astronauts don't really have relationships with their children. I don't think one would ever see a movie like this where a male astronaut's relationship with his child was the primary focus of the movie. And then, at the end of the movie, she does something really stupid that would very likely end her career and possibly put her colleagues in danger. The parts of the movie that are about preparing to go into space were interesting (though slow), but the human drama parts were annoying.