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While the prospect of relocating to Mars might not seem all that horrifying right now, the film “The Space Between Us” is about a young man who has spent all of his 16 years on the red planet and is eager to return to Earth—specifically, to meet the cute high school girl with whom he has begun an online flirtation—and meet her face to face for the first time. The problem is that he may not be physically capable of enduring the journey—or even surviving long once he arrives.
Despite the fact that it plays a little like a “Muppet Babies” version of “Starman,” the premise is intriguing, and Asa Butterfield gives an endearing performance as the film’s lead. In contrast to the romance between Butterfield and an annoyingly feisty Britt Robertson as his interplanetary pen pal, the science fiction/mystery element of the film works far better, and the whole thing eventually collapses in a heap of unintentionally hilarious melodrama.
Veterans such as Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino inject a sliver of dignity and, on occasion, an element of emotional truth into this frequently ridiculous endeavor. However, as Will Smith, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, and Naomie Harris undoubtedly discovered while filming “Collateral Beauty,” there’s only so much you can do with an Allan Loeb script that’s been sitting around for a while. The plot twists are just too ridiculous to bear, and as a result, they sap all of the power from their supposed catharsis.
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The film is directed by Peter Chelsom, who is known for such early-2000s flops as “Town & Country,” “Serendipity,” and the English-language remake of “Shall We Dance?” However, awkward tonal shifts abound in the film. Chelsom, who also provides the voice of the boy’s wisecracking robot pal early on, struggles to make the transition from a character who has received terrible news to a character who is enjoying a joyful hot air balloon festival, for example. Likewise, the moment Robertson’s fiercely independent foster-child character begins playing the piano and singing a ballad in the middle of a Sam’s Club shopping spree is more likely to elicit laughter than the poignancy for which it is clearly intended.
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However, simply because Oldman is involved, there is reason to be optimistic at the outset. He portrays Nathaniel Shepherd, a billionaire explorer in the vein of Richard Branson, who is funding a mission to establish a colony on the planet Mars called East Texas. A glimmer of hope exists that climate change is a motivating factor, but any suggestion of political underpinning is quickly dismissed. However, it turns out that the lead astronaut (Janet Montgomery) was pregnant at the time she boarded the rocket, and she passes away during childbirth several months later. (This is not a spoiler, because it occurs early in the film.) Intriguing ethical questions are at stake: whether Nathaniel and his team should inform the rest of the world that a boy has been born on Mars, or whether they should keep it a secret in order to avoid jeopardizing the mission. However, that is about the extent of the intellectual ambitions at stake in this situation.
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16 years later, the colony is thriving, and the baby has grown into an inquisitive, slightly awkward young man named Gardner Elliot, who is now a successful businessman. He is accompanied by Gugino, who portrays the intelligent and supportive astronaut who has been assigned to East Texas to act as a mother figure to him. Gardner’s daily conversations with Robertson’s character, a similarly frustrated and isolated adolescent who goes by the nickname Tulsa, however, cause him to become increasingly curious about the planet we live on. He also hopes to discover the identity of his father, who he has only glimpsed in photographs and snippets of home movies over the years.
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Gardner makes the journey to Earth, despite the physical toll it is likely to take on him. Once on Earth, he immediately flees his government handlers and seeks out Tulsa, who becomes his ally (who lives in Colorado). Even though Butterfield’s pleasingly guileless persona makes his fish-out-of-water antics involving exotic phenomena like rain seem obvious, they’re vaguely amusing because of his pleasingly guileless persona. Along the way, they steal various cars and stop in Las Vegas on their way to California, all while trying to avoid being apprehended by the authorities and his deteriorating health.
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This brings us to the plethora of distracting and inconsistent details that are present. Isn’t it supposed to be 16 years in the future, or something like that? Some elements (such as laptop computers) have a high-tech feel to them, whereas others (such as dry erase boards in a classroom and vintage pickup trucks and automobiles) are clearly from the present day or even a few decades ago in their appearance. Even though they make a big deal about the fact that their ultimate destination is in the tiny beach town of Summerland, Calif.—just a few miles down the coast from Santa Barbara—the authorities who arrive are from the neighboring state of California. When you’re not emotionally invested in what is supposed to be the film’s dramatic climax, stuff like this stands out more prominently.
Neither Butterfield nor Robertson (who is about ten years too old to be playing a high-school student at this point) are given particularly compelling dialogue with which to persuade us of their budding romance in the film. It doesn’t matter to the score, which works nonstop to make us feel everything.
After all, there is an exploding barn to look forward to. That’s something you don’t see every day on the planet Mars.
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