#joepenna

my fanart movie poster Arctic (2018) survival drama film directed by Joe Penna

With Mads Mikkelsen

Seeing Stowaway on a small screen is a shame. Even at home, there’s a sequence that creates such intense vertigo it’ll make your legs wobble. In the cinema? It would've been amazing. This is a smart sci-fi movie that focuses on relevant ideas. It’ll have you wondering what you would do in the characters’ shoes.

After the launch of the MTS-42, commander Marina Barnett (Toni Collette), biologist David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim), and medical researcher Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick) discover an unconscious support engineer aboard. What is Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson) doing here? How will they manage the two-year voyage to Mars when there are only enough resources for three people?

At the film's core is a moral dilemma. There are four people. Only three can survive. What do you do? Scramble to find a solution? That costs resources, time, and energy. There's only so much to spare before a call must be made. Once every solution has been exhausted… then what? Draw straws? If only it were that simple. Firstly, why is Michael aboard? To sabotage the mission? Even if he isn’t, who’s to say he won’t freak out when he realizes he’s the expendable stowaway? Once the orders from Earth come in, which members of the MTS-42 will follow?

This conundrum would be easier to solve if the people were one-dimensional, but they’re well-written. You understand everyone’s point of view and the actors are charismatic (particularly Anna Kendrick, who you might not have bought as an astronaut but you do as a medical researcher traveling to space under a captain). Sometimes people make decisions that make you wince but only because it's cranked up the uncertainty. Stowaway is missing a little something to push it up to the next level where someone death would make you burst into tears but it’s solid overall.

The best scene concerns a desperate gambit to ensure everyone’s survival. It’s a blend of the Burj Khalifa scene from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and Gravity. One false step and you’re falling into a literal bottomless pit. Losing your grip would mean a horrible, lonely death through oxygen deprivation. You might as well take off your helmet and make it quick. There’s so much riding on that scene you’ll be vibrating with anxiety and excitement. The longer it goes on, the more intense it gets because it’ll be harder for them to go back and the obstacles they notice keep adding up. Even if the movie were just ok, it would be worth seeing just for that.

Writers Ryan Morrison and Joe Penna (who also directs) have made all the right choices with this script. Stowaway resists making things easy by having villains or simple solutions. There's nothing simple about the moral dilemma explored here. Watch it on the biggest screen you can with all the lights turned off. Preferably, with someone else holding your hand so you can feel how tightly they squeeze it when it gets at its most intense. (May 6, 2021)