The Movie Partnership is excited to share that Space Oddity, will be available on Digital Download from 6th November. 

Space Oddity, directed by Kyra Sedgwick stars, Kyle Allen (West Side Story), Alexandra Shipp (X-Men Apocalypse & Dark Phoenix, Barbie), Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid’s Tale), Carrie Preston (True Blood), Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory), Alfre Woodard (Marvel’s Luke Cage) & Kevin Bacon (Footloose, Tremors & X-Men: First Class).

The last time I experienced Kyra Sedgwick’s cinematic work was earlier this year when I caught a thriller/comedy from 2019 called Villains, wherein she played one half of an eccentric married couple with a crazy secret. It was an absolute blast of a movie, and one I definitely recommend.

So when I saw she had a new movie coming to streaming this year, I was excited to see what she had to offer up. Hey, her husband is even in it, creating more degrees of Kevin Bacon which are always nice. Now he links directly to The Big Bang Theory. Which… he might have before. I’m not really a Big Bang Theory aficionado, so I can’t say for sure.

Despite its name, Space Oddity takes place entirely on Earth. It’s the story of Alexander, a young man whose parents work a farm while his sister, Elizabeth, has left the countryside to get a job at a PR firm. Alexander has dedicated himself to a dream of being one of the first people to colonize our neighboring planet through a program called Mission Mars, and his initial announcement at seeking this goal has brought Elizabeth home. We are told that while NASA and Space X and Virgin have 20 year plans to get life onto Mars, Mission Mars intends to do so in ten years.

Not many folks have faith in Alexander… or in the corporation with which he has aligned himself. Elizabeth is particularly taken aback, but she demands to work as Alexander’s PR consultant to keep him from embarrassing himself while making local news stories as the guy going to Mars. Kevin Bacon as the patriarch of the household recognizes that Alexander’s quest is wildly unrealistic, as well. Alexander and Elizabeth’s mother is more accepting, but she is clearly living under some kind of delusion (and PTSD).

Speaking of living with trauma, we also find out early on that the whole family is undergoing one: Elizabeth and Alexander somewhat recently lost an older brother, Thomas, due to a car accident in which he and Alexander were involved. Many of those who don’t support Alexander see his mission to make it to Mars as a way of ignoring the reality around him.

While going about his life, Alexander meets Dairy, played by Shipp, while applying for life insurance in preparation for his mission. The two strike up a friendship–and more–as he continues going through his daily routine to enter training for Mission Mars.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+Alexandra Shipp. She is a star. She has shined in X-Men movies, in Barbie, and in the criminally underseen Tragedy Girls. She is a full-on burgeoning star, and she is one of those young actresses who makes everything she is in better, even the lesser X-Movies in which she has been cast.

Shipp radiates charisma here. She is a ton of fun in every scene. Her smile lights up the setting, and she plays opposite Kyle Allen so effectively. She is joyful and teasing and… just… I can’t express how much charm she brings to every moment. And when Alexander upsets her in the third act and the conflict arises, she brings what intensity she can to show her displeasure (unfortunately she is written out while fighting with Alexander so the movie can resolve family issues for a while).

+The movie does well by the Tom subplot. It is hinted at early in the movie, but then the point is allowed to float in the background while the main story is established. It all comes to a head later when Alexander finally tells Daisy the story of Tom’s passing, and around this time, we see how Tom’s death has affected everyone in the household. Kevin Bacon gets a very emotional intense scene around it, as well.

It’s all very realistic. Tom’s death is there, but it doesn’t envelope these peoples’ lives. They have physically moved on and are living the best they can, but the grief is perpetually buzzing in the background. It has fundamentally changed them all and will always be with them. That’s grief. A lot of lazier films don’t portray it that well.

-Kyle Allen is… fine. He’s fine. He’s not actively detrimental to the proceedings, but he doesn’t scream Leading Man to me at any point here. He feels tired or maybe overly subdued. Acting opposite Shipp helps nothing, as she is constantly outshining him, but even on his own, he just feels so strange and unusual. Almost off-putting.

This is exacerbated by a mid-flick scene where he gives a speech to some second graders. He initially bores them, but then he flips a switch and becomes entertaining and pleasant. A few of the kids take him up as their idol in the wake of the speech, and it’s just a kind of scene where… nothing he had shown prior to that moment led me to believe he had that in him. It’s so out of nowhere and inconsistent with what we had seen.

-There is a romantic little scene between Daisy and Alexander in the second act where they go see some lightning bugs, and the effects of the fireflies is distractingly bad. Look, this isn’t a movie living or dying with visual effects, but this scene looked terrible, and I’m surprised they didn’t just cut it and do something else instead.

OVERALL

A sweet story buoyed by a glorious co-lead performance from Shipp, snd some overall decent direction from Sedgwick (there are some early hiccups with shots, but those iron out as the flick goes on). It’s all very heart-warming, if predictable, and well worth a watch.