Relations between Russia and the United States are bad right now, the worst they have been since the end of the Cold War. In the twentieth century, Soviet Russia was a reliable source for bad guys in the movies, to the point where Wayne from Wayne’s World once complained on “Saturday Night Live” that the lack of bad guys was a reason he was bummed communism fell. Perhaps Wayne would be encouraged by I.S.S., a new science fiction film that imagines cosmonauts as shifty, untrustworthy, even violent. The premise is kind of ingenious, imagining a small-scale war on a space station that only involves six people, and yet director Gabriela Cowperthwaite takes the script by Nick Shafir too seriously. If they leaned harder into genre thrills and gonzo paranoia, maybe they would have an agonizing film that also serves as commentary on modern geopolitics. By being too respectful with the material, the film does not have the nastiness it requires.
At first, there is a sense of camaraderie between the Americans and their Russian counterparts. When astronaut Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose) arrives at the International Space Station, she is welcomed with open arms by the other five occupants. There is even a sense of romance between the American leader (Chris Messina) and one of the Russians (Maria Mashkova). But then Kira sees something alarming on the Earth’s surface: it looks like the launch of nuclear weapons, with chunks of continents on fire. Both Americans and Russian radio home for guidance, then learn that war has broken out with both nations. With the camaraderie effectively eliminated, Kira and the others now see the cosmonauts as their enemy. If Kira got instructions to take over ISS by any means necessary, what instructions were the Russians given? There is no time to wait, since one of the Russians (Costa Ronin) is quick to find weapons wherever he can.
Since Kira is the audience point-of-view character, we see her denying how badly things have deteriorated, and how she hopes reason will prevail. Not unlike Crimson Tide, another film where Americans on a vessel receive incomplete intelligence about nuclear war, the Americans have no choice but to use their intuition until they can get reliable intelligence. Breathless dialogue punctuates the long middle section, where Kira and the other American (John Gallagher Jr.) must decide whether Russian sabotage is deliberate, an act of war. Although the cast is full of reliable actors – you may recall Costa Ronin from the TV series The Americans, or the third cosmonaut (Pilou Asbæk) from Game of Thrones – the script betrays them. Some of the plot twists are convoluted, and the visual effects do not jibe with the squabbling among the characters. By the end of the film, the entire planet’s surface appears to be on fire, and yet these men and women still believe control of the space station somehow matters to their countries’ respective leadership?
Cowperthwaite is mostly known for her documentaries. She made a big splash (pun intended) with Blackfish, a docu-thriller about killer whale attacks. That film demonstrates her innate trust in her audiences, an acceptance that we are intelligent and curious enough that we do not need our hands held over a film’s overall message. That same trust is in I.S.S., except here it hurts the film – not helps it – when the film tries to strike a middle ground between exploitation and respectability. The zero gravity fight scenes are poorly choreographed, to the point they are downright cheesy, and the harnesses the actors wear to simulate zero gravity make it hard to suspend any disbelief. Maybe if the Americans or the Russians went truly mad, with genuine hostility, then it would be easier to care about the outcome of who prevails, at least on a character level. Rather than take a side, I.S.S. takes a familiar “the only winning move is not to play” ending, a kind of punt that ignores the real stakes of not unrealistic scenario.
An interesting premise with a flawed execution, this the kind of film that grows more frustrating the more you think about it. Its ending, where two characters leave the safety of the space station for a planet torched by nuclear fallout, makes you wonder where all their intelligence and good sense evaporated. The only explanation is that the film needed an ending, however misguided, and that kind of flaw is deadly in a film that depends on our understanding of what each character is thinking.
Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street
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