Proxima

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 subject is a European Space Agency mission called Proxima, astronauts will travel from the Russian launch site to the space station and stay there living and working for a year. The prime subject of the movie is the single French mom who has an eight year old daughter. Being separated for that long will be difficult for both of them.

This is not a space action movie, in fact it ends with the blast off. It is a character study, surely inspired by the many mothers who have done something similar over the past 35 to 40 years. During the end credits are a montage of several female astronauts and their families, from a variety of countries.

This is a good movie, my wife and I enjoyed it at home on DVD from our public library.

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.

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.

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