The Space Between Us
Man, I feel for Britt Robertson. She’s played in lots of poorly received films and The Space Between Us is another one. This one is a stinker of a film trying to make a sentimental galaxy spanning love story. It’s pretty saccharine and it doesn’t really come off well. I think the biggest misstep was how the story and the kid was conceived. Totally terrible which shaded the rest of the film if you didn’t know it from the start.
The kid is Asa Butterfield’s kid who was born on Mars. His story was hidden from the entire planet because it would’ve been a scandal. Except that it wasn’t told and the director of the space company, Gary Oldman, treated it like a scandal and resigned soon after leaving the kid to grow up in Mars without his mom and being a hidden figure. He is determined to come back to Earth even though it would kill him. He is determined to meet Tulsa (Robertson) because he fell in love with her from afar.
There’s an escape. He makes it to Earth. He treats it like an alien place. Except Butterfield acts weird. Geeky but smart.
I would love to have liked this movie. It tries, but the last third of the movie, when the big reveal, comes destroys any promise in liking the film. It is hard to sympathize with the people involved – the actors, director, writers. They made the ending and they gambled to throw out the good will of the first 2/3 of the films.
2 of 5 stars.
