Lucy in the Sky
Lucy in the Sky gets too caught up in technical flourishes and repetitive philosophizing to do anything compelling with its premise or characters.
LegionandFargoTV show creator Noah Hawley has been evenhandedly charge of ( at times ) prioritize stylish visuals at the expense of storytelling in his oeuvre . It ’s a criticism that also applies to his feature directing debut onLucy in the Sky , a celluloid partly inspired by former NASA spaceman Lisa Nowak ’s attempted snatch , burglary , and ravishment in 2007 . The pic tries to use this incident as the jumping - off dot for a floor that considers what being in outer space for a long time could do to a person psychologically after they return to earth , but any potential insight is lose in the murder . Lucy in the Skygets too catch up in technical fanfare and repetitive philosophizing to do anything compelling with its premise or characters .
Natalie Portman stars inLucy in the Skyas Lucy Cola , an astronaut whose determination to come through lands her a smirch on an extended commission in space . However , after understand things from the perspective of the cosmos , Lucy receive her quondam life on terra firma seems humble and trivial by comparison . Eager to get back into space as soon as possible , Lucy commit just about all her energy and attention to bring a spot on the next commission she can specify for . But when she enters an affair with playboy astronaut Mark Goodwin ( Jon Hamm ) in an effort to recapture the thrill of being off - planet , Lucy find herself in danger of going off the deep close .
Lucy in the Skystarts off promising enough with its opening , which finds Lucy at the poop close of her life - changing missionary station . Whereas a number of recent film have essay to impersonate space in a realistic fashion ( see : First Man , Ad Astra ) , Hawley ’s film makes the insensate nothingness of the universe seem splendid and psychedelic in these first few minute . From there , the flick employs a ocular magic trick in which the vista of Lucy ’s quotidian life on ground are presented in the one-time - fashioned straight - like 4:3 prospect ratio , as opposed to the more accustomed fullscreen ratio used for the moment where she ’s either in blank space , imagine herself there , or living life on the edge . In possibility , it ’s a clever room of showing that life on earth feel ( literally ) smaller for Lucy now . In action , unfortunately , it comes across as a catch mean to distract from how much ofLucy in the Sky ’s first two turn amount to the same three upshot repeated over and over - namely , Lucy obsesses about space , behaves recklessly , and those around her utter their concern .
Hawley give-up the ghost on to use many of the same technique ( hyper - stylized shooting , fragmented redaction ) as previous Portman - led psychological dramas ( Black SwanandJackiein particular ) have to verbalize her characters ' deteriorating mental state . Here , though , the technical aspects overshadow Portman ’s performance rather than raise it , and Lucy ’s interactions with the people closest to her ring all the more hollow for it . Portman fully commits to make Lucy a subversively engaging antiheroine , and the talented sustain cast ( including , Legion ’s Dan Stevens as Lucy ’s supportive , if slightly oblivious husband ) do the best they can , but they ’re rot nonetheless . This give way threefold for Zazie Beetz , who costars as the young cosmonaut and Lucy ’s " competitor " , Erin Eccles . That this is the second late film , along withJoker , where Beetz has been saddled with playing the glorified plot gadget for a white admirer ’s downward spiral , well , that ’s a discussion in and of itself .
Eventually , during its third human activity , theLucy in the Skyscript ( which Hawley wrote with Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi ) transform into more of aFargo - esque crime thriller , bringing it nigher to Nowak ’s real - lifespan report in the process . It ’s an inapt tonal shift and even hail with a somewhat off-the-wall pseudo - empowerment message that only calls more attention to how under - written the movie ’s female characters ( including , Pearl Amanda Dickson as Lucy ’s niece and Ellen Burstyn in an diverting turn as her foul - mouthed grandmother ) unfeignedly are . This is also where the moving picture begins to leave a piteous taste in one ’s mouth . Yes , it cuts out one of the more humiliating details of Nowak ’s law-breaking , butLucy in the Skyis still arguably guilty of exploiting her account in the end and using it as an excuse to wax philosophical , rather than expressing genuine pity for her via what happens to Lucy .
To be well-defined , that surely was n’t the intention , andLucy in the Skyis really just trying to be a thoughtful character subject area ( one loosely inspire by terrible material - public events ) that uses its trippy imaging and editing to pull in audiences into its troubled protagonist ’s outlook . But as has happened before on his TV shows , Hawley ’s directorial flair step by step becomes the master attractiveness , leave in a tarradiddle that ’s altogether puddle and half - baked . Whether that ’s because the flick ’s premise is essentially flawed ( as actual - life-time withdraw spaceman Marsha Ivins argued in aTIMEeditorial published back in 2017 ) is up for argumentation , but Hawley ’s ambition is undeniable all the same . Still , like Lucy herself , he would do well to concentrate a fiddling less on the stars next clip and pay more attention to what ’s going on around him , rather .
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Lucy in the Skyis now playing in choice U.S. theaters and will extend to extra markets over the coming weeks . It is 124 proceedings long and is rated R for language and some sexual content .
After receive a transcendent experience on a recent mission , Atstronaut Lucy Cola returns home and has a hard sentence reconnecting with world . Despite have huge whizz such as Natalie Portman , Jon Hamm , and Zazie Beetz , Lucy in the Sky was mostly negatively incur and was also a huge box - office bomb in 2019 .
Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm in Lucy in the Sky
