David Bowie’s Major Tom sits in his tin can. Elton John’s Rocket Man misses Earth and his wife. Matt Damon was left to starve to death in “The Martian.” Matthew McConaughey cries as he watches his children grow old without him in “Interstellar.”
Many works of art have been created about the endless loneliness of space travel. So how could it not be? Loneliness may be a universal human condition, but what could be lonelier than being completely removed from the human race?
Adam Sandler, as the moody Czech astronaut Jakub in Johan Renck’s “Spaceman,” gives trite answers when asked by a young girl during a broadcast to Earth if he’s lonely, but his eyes betray the truth. Yes, he is alone. So lonely.
At one point in Sandler’s career, the idea of the spacesuit-clad actor playing an anxious astronaut heading to the outskirts of Jupiter could only hint at comedy. But at this point, we’ve seen Sandler do such a great job with dramatic roles that he knows what he can do when the stars align, and he gives an extremely empathetic performance here.
If there’s a flaw in “Spaceman,” despite its promising promise, it’s not in its acting intensity, but in its strange lack of story intensity. Adapted from Jaroslav Kalfar’s novel “The Bohemian Spaceman,” this film depicts a world that is supposed to be fascinating but is often reduced to seductive but ultimately frustrating dream sequences. They’re very nice, but we actually want to know more about Jakub and his past on Earth; not to mention his relationship with his wife Lenka (the always wonderful Carey Mulligan) beyond seeing her running through fields of yellow flowers.
We start about halfway through Jakub’s mission. It has been 189 days since Lenka and Earth left for a solo trip to explore the bright, purple, and mysterious Chopra cloud near Jupiter; He left the Koreans behind.
What year are we in? The spaceship is not 2024, it looks like the late 20th century and is definitely not futuristic. The production design here is terrific; It evokes what such an environment might look like when a man lives in it for six months; it’s more like what a studio apartment might look like after six months without cleaning. There are bottles of space food that are half consumed. The toilet keeps breaking down, but ground control is more interested in fixing the cameras than the plumbing.
The truth is that Jakub misses his wife like John’s Rocket Man. They send each other video messages, but hers have become spotty. She’s pregnant and angry about being abandoned for a year. In fact, Lenka records a message to Jakub telling him that she is extremely unhappy and wants to break up with him.
All of this creates a we-have-a-trouble-in-Houston moment for the mission that needs a focused astronaut. Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini), head of the Euro Space program, decides that Jakub cannot see Lenka’s message. But she senses that something is wrong.
And one night, Jakub wakes up with a spider coming out of his mouth.
Phew – it’s just a dream. But soon the spider emerges as a literal, six-eyed, life-size alien. Actually, we really think. The spider may be a dream and we should definitely consider this possibility. (Actually, maybe the whole mission is a dream and Jakub is a guy living in a studio apartment, but let’s not go there.)
At first Jakub thinks he is going crazy. He puts on his suit and tries to kill the alien with destructive gas. However, the spider helpfully explains that this will not harm him. He explains that he travels through space and time, starting from his own planet. Ah, it may have been around since the beginning of the universe. Also: He is voiced by Paul Dano in a soft tone that probably reminds him of HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
If HAL were perhaps a therapist – because that’s what the spider essentially becomes, trying to alleviate Jakub’s loneliness but also being very curious about his life on Earth. She calls Jakub a “skinny person” and absolutely loves the nut butter the “skinny person” is eating, calling it “rich and creamy.”
But mainly they discuss Jakub’s marriage. Jakub is on defense. “Why do you resist research?” He asks the spider, which Jakub names Hanuš. At another point, Hanuš asks: “You have too many limits, skinny person, maybe they are the reason for your loneliness?”
This interaction alternates with scenes in Lenka’s hometown, as well as flashbacks to the birth of the couple’s love, the memories the spider forces Jakub to explore, and this whole birth-of-the-universe thing.
And so, as the spaceship approaches the mysterious purple cloud that represents both the beginning and perhaps the end, Jakub comes closer to understanding his love for Lenka and where it fits into the universe.
These late scenes are both visually beautiful and a bit lacking. Is the message simply that one must travel through space and time (and past Jupiter) to understand what love means? Questions arise but are not investigated. For example, we briefly learn that Jakub’s father in Czechoslovakia worked as an informant under Soviet rule, but little is given to the details of how this affected Jakub.
Still, it’s a pleasant and occasionally fascinating ride, thanks to Sandler’s deft empathy and another riveting turn from Mulligan, who never disappoints. His star remains one of the brightest in the Hollywood constellation.
“Spaceman,” a Netflix release, is rated R “for language” by the Motion Picture Association. Running time: 107 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.