Netflix’s The Midnight Sky – Disappointingly Dull Fare (Early Review)

Since the inception of film, there are always those whose arrival is greeted by some much hype only for it to crumble under the pressure of expectation and disappoint. The Midnight Sky, based on the Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, is unfortunately one of those films. That being said, this isn’t necessarily a complete indictment of the film as the elements of a great film are there. While it is definitely a competently made film with decent performances from an arguably all star cast, featuring one of the best scores of the year, it is ultimately sunk by a subpar plot that fails to elicit any type of emotional connection whatsoever with the story or characters which essentially nullifies anything else the film may have to offer. In the end, the film is sure to still hold some appeal for some audiences but the majority are likely to be left disappointed by the end of its sub 2 hour running time.

The Midnight Sky is a nondescript post-Apocalyptic tale that follows Augustine (Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic who races to stop a group of astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe. While the film does a decent job at setting the stage, it only dropped the ball from that point on. Whatever said catastrophe was, it was enough to prompt Augustine to brave the elements in order to get out the message to the astronauts. In fact, the details were never made abundantly clear. Though Augustine appeared to be merely hanging on. he was making the best out of his situation. He thought he was alone, however, he soon learned that this was not the case as a young girl named Iris (Caoilinn Springall) was left behind in the same remote observatory.

Watching the relationship between Augustine and Iris evolve over the course of the film was cute and the lighter moments between them were fun to watch as it saw the grizzled scientist forced to tend to the young girl. This blossoming continued in the rough elements outside of the observatory once his efforts required him go out and take Iris with him. Those conditions were certainly a test for them as well as the inconsistent air quality. Their subsequent struggles and the will-they-or-wont-they-make-it factor was somewhat compelling to watch, so much so that the film had to break that up with a subplot involving the astronauts on the other end of the equation. Suffice it to say that each of these felt like two different films where neither was all that interesting as the lack of character development continued here. The film gives us no reason to care for the people whom Augustine was trying to save, including Sully (Jones), Adewole (Oyelowo), Maya (Tiffany Boone), Sanchez (Demián Bichir), and Mitchell (Kyle Chandler).

The Midnight Sky wants viewers to care about these astronauts as much as Augustine and Iris but it’s just hard to get there. Of course the astronauts will have their own struggles on their way back to Earth but they couldn’t help but feel inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Now it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that both subplots inevitably came together. However, that opportunity would eventually be squandered as the film hit a wall both figuratively and literally. The dull and uninspiring built up over the course of the film made for an extra disappointing payoff while an unnecessary and borderline-pretentious twist was simply one more slap in the face. The unsatisfying ending as a whole is sure to not go over well with some viewers.

If The Midnight Sky had any saving grace, it was its technical prowess. The story may be dull for the most part but at least it looks good and sounds phenomenal thanks to its beautiful cinematography, impressive visual effects from the Earth scenes to the spaceship scenes, and some great sound work. Meanwhile, the best part of the film was its fantastic score. While it was fantastic on its own, it almost felt wasted here as it failed to prop up the film as a whole (though it’s certainly not it’s job to do so). As far as the performances were concerned, they were fine with the best being Clooney as Augustine. His charisma and presence saves it as he brings forth a damaged man weathered by time and experience. Nevertheless, his Augustine clearly cared for Iris and that believable connection made much of the film at least somewhat compelling to watch (though Springall also had a lot to do with that). Though Jones, Oyelowo, Boone, Bichir, and Chandler were fine, they couldn’t fight the fact that they felt like they were in a different film.

At the end of the day, The Midnight Sky is certainly a competently made film but considering the people behind it, the fact that it is a bore is just sad.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.