‘Spaceman’ Review: Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan Are the Star-Crossed Lovers We Didn’t Know We Needed | Berlinale 2024

More than just another film about an astronaut, Spaceman is here to give a new meaning to the phrase star-crossed lovers. Swedish director Johan Renck (HBO’s Chernobyl and many, many music videos for the likes of Bowie, Madonna, and Robbie Williams) brings a 2017 Czech novel—“Spaceman of Bohemia” by Jaroslav Kalfař—to the big screen, perhaps knowing that this film will stand out. It’s a peculiar project, with a screenplay adapted by relative newcomer Colby Day and developed by Netflix as a Czech-US production; shot in Prague (and in “movie-space”), the film stars none other than American comedy’s darling Adam Sandler as the titular spaceman, Jakub Prochazka, and the ever-astounding Carey Mulligan as his Earth-bound pregnant wife, Lenka.

The film opens with a Jakub tramping and trudging through a river, in a spacesuit; the picture is as jarring as it is beautiful, already carrying the marks of his dislocation. Then, Jakub wakes up from this earthly dream just in time to join in a live broadcast. From the screen, he’s greeted by Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini) and a sixth grader who calls him “the loneliest man in the world”, a label he’s determined to brush off rather quickly by evoking the daily conversations he supposedly has with his wife. But Lenka is nowhere to be found, seen, or heard. In fact, she has just left him, but he doesn’t know that yet. Naturally, the country’s reputation relies solely on him completing his space mission and there is no room for liabilities. 

We get the jist of it very early on, thanks to Sandler’s drowsy state, a few short-lived flashbacks, and the Commissioner’s stern tone: there is trauma, there is loss, and there is a lot projected on this lonely human in outer space (both coming from the state, and from himself). Both the novel and the film explore themes of belonging, love, and letting go, but while the former stays within the emotional limits of sci-fi and absurdist humor, the latter uses these tropes to make room for a deeply touching, ritualistic farewell. The deep psychological grounds covered by Spaceman may seem at odds with the film’s weirder and funnier surface-level elements, but its heart is in the right place. In short, bring tissues. 

Before delving deeper into what makes Spaceman a standout tearjerker among many things, one has to mention that there’s another important character whose presence drives the plot forward, almost single-handedly so. That’s Hanuš, a giant spider voiced by Paul Dano, who introduces himself as the last of an alien species. Drawn to this particular spaceship and this particular human, Hanuš is both a full-bodied, hairy, eight-legged creature and a psychotherapist to the tormented Jakub. We’re now deep into uncanny territory, but the film’s emotional acumen proves itself able to overpower all these bizarre premises.

Sandler is particularly fascinating as a sleep-deprived, repressed Jakub, whose ambition to do right by the unfairness he’s been subjected to as a child, has driven him out as far as Jupiter. This is a serious role for the American actor, but serious in a way we rarely get to see him. His depressed character is worlds away from the anxious Barry in Punch-Drunk Love or Howard in Uncut Gems with melancholy taking over his speech and weighing down the wrinkles around the eyes we’re so used to seeing brightened by a smile. However, not all of Jakub’s complexity can be found in his character’s backstory. As the son of a Communist party member, he had to suffer greatly the consequences in the political changeover; the crushing amount of guilt inherited drove him to take on the space mission and leave his wife behind with the risk of straining their relationship to the breaking point. As backstories go, this one is as good as any. But it is Sandler’s well-paced performance that really makes the film soar to soul-stirring depths, even when he’s hugging a giant spider. 

Spaceman deviates from its original source by positioning the marital relationship front and center, making full use of Mulligan’s otherwise limited screen time. She appears in flashbacks and in intermittent scenes set in the present, just as she’s left her husband and reckons with her future loneliness, and all those are poignant and poetic without her needing to say much. For a film that’s so much about talking through your trauma, Spaceman allows its actors to convey the irresolvable conflict of separation in their own individual ways. In one case, it takes a humanized spider and his softly uttered wisdoms that may as well belong in a Terrence Malick film to guide Jakub from refusing to articulate his neglect to its eventual acknowledgement. In Lenka’s case, her process of saying goodbye consists in taking on the responsibility for leaving in the first place, and this is never a simple task. Although the film’s ending differs from its equivalent in the book, it still packs in a cathartic punch. Expect a closing to make even the toughest skeptics believe in love (again), so for that, we thank you, big spider!

Grade: B+

This review is from the 74th Berlin International Film Festival where Spaceman world premiered in the Berlinale Special Gala section. The film will be released in select theaters on February 23 and stream globally on March 1.

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Savina Petkova

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