Chris At The Pictures

Jake Gyllenhaal returns to B-movie cinema in this weightless but efficiently gruesome space creepie. A team of astronauts and scientists on the International Space Station are thrilled when a probe dispatched to Mars returns laden with samples, one of which could demonstrate proof of life on the red planet. One such sample contains a miniscule but motionless organism. Being characters in a creature feature, they inevitably decide to inject it with nutrients, poke it with an electrical prod, and generally fiddle about in a way that can only lead to much yelling and crunching.

With the creature loose on the station, the film becomes an episodic series of chase sequences intercut with light musings on the nature of life, as the various inhabitants of the ISS (Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson et al) attempt to prevent ‘Calvin’ from reaching Earth.

With the basic premise and top-of-the-line visual effects taken into consideration, yes, it’s little more than Alien and Gravity blended together…but the resulting milkshake goes down well with a large popcorn. Gyllenhaal brings his A-game, even to what may seem a step down from his recent string of varied, comparatively arthouse roles, and Ferguson continues to build on a promise of stardom. Reynolds is rather less impressive, but for plot reasons as opposed to lack of ability. Hiroyuki Sanada (as in Sunshine, playing an awestruck astronaut who can’t catch a break) never gives a bad performance, and is suitably intense.

In short, they’re all good company when Calvin gets bored of them all moping about the Challenger disaster (a huge misstep in an otherwise amiable script) and decides to start separating various limbs and vital organs from their bodies. The creature is an effectively creepy amalgamation of several we’ve seen before and the gore is visceral and plentiful: picture the grisliest bits of Prometheus and you’re in the right ball park.

I really want to talk about the ending – because it’s the one part of the film that draws out anything more than a plaintive “Yeugh!” or shrill gasp – but all I can say without dropping spoilers is that you’ll never find a more jarring use of Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky. It’s like tacking Peter Genesis’ Carpet Crawlers onto the epilogue of The Fly. Again, I’m referring to another piece of sci-fi because there’s barely a microbe of original thought present in Life. But that's not a slight: it’s schlocky and slimy and all kinds of stupid… and I had a ball with it.

Here’s a peculiar morsel from Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallée. Jake Gyllenhaal finds some middle ground between the wiry disconnect of Nightcrawler’s Lou Bloom and the hefty grief of Southpaw’s Billy Hope as Davis Mitchell, an investment banker struggling with the recent loss of his wife. When informed by the doctor that she has passed, Davis retires to a closeby vending machine that fails to deliver his request. Frustrated and desperate to find an outlet for his confusion, he begins a series of letters to the vending company that become increasingly confessional, catching the eye of customer service rep, Karen (Naomi Watts), with whom he forms an odd connection.

No-one could ever accuse Gyllenhaal of accepting roles that are ‘samey’, especially in the past three or four years. Just as characters like Bloom or Hope demand a physical change, Davis Mitchell requires a facial restraint that needs to convey the appropriate apathy (one moment sees him attempting to fake tears in the mirror), without teetering over into the realms of pure unlikability. Even if we cannot understand his lack of an ‘acceptable’ emotional response (a stance ratified by Chris Cooper’s bulldozing performance as Davis’ heartbroken father-in-law), we like him enough to feel intrigued, as Karen does.

Watts’ role begins as an undemanding ‘unhappy housewife’ placeholder but is enlivened by the gradual introduction of Judah Lewis as Karen’s young son, Chris, in a plot thread that smacks of a more developed mirror of Bill Murray and Jaden Lieberher in lesser Watts vehicle St. Vincent. It’s a gentler remedy to the concurrent development of Davis, whose annoyances with the creaking of cubicle doors or the flickering of a lightbulb lead him to start deconstructing household objects (picture an episode of James May: The Reassembler gone wrong).

The narrative structure of the film flits from Davis’ delicate attempts to find solace and his abrasive inner monologues, detailing his letters to Karen. It’s a difficult balancing act that will succeed or fail with an audience entirely on the basis of two lines of dialogue: “Everything has become a metaphor”, Davis muses, at the sight of an uprooted tree that calls to mind the state of his relationship, and “We’re taking apart my marriage”, as he switches from delicate disassembly to rampant destruction of his own home. If you can accept either without an irritable sigh, there’s a chance you’ll be thoroughly engrossed, even with the caveat that what you’re involved in has no real direction and is littered with motifs and vignettes that don’t quite mesh. A strand centred on Heart’s Crazy on You can be judged as superficially diverting at best and run-time padding at worst.

Here’s an intense but crowded disaster epic from director Baltasar Kormákur, detailing an ill-fated expedition to the peak of Mount Everest in 1996. Jason Clarke stars as Rob Hall, the head of a massive tourist pack heading up the slopes. Among his entourage is Josh Brolin as Texan adventurer Beck Weathers, Jake Gyllenhaal as mountaineer Scott Fisher and Emily Watson as base camp leader Helen Wilton. 

While it’s no surprise that Jason Clarke is excellent, the real stand-out performances come from Watson and Brolin, particularly incredible for the former considering she’s tied to a phone for a sizeable chunk of screen-time (as is Keria Knightley as Rob’s wife Jan). Brolin has never been much of a selling point for me, but here he’s a wonder to watch as Beck’s go-gettin’ attitude is slowly and cruelly worn away by the ascent.