Long distance relationships suck. They just do. Ah, now this is something I know a bit about. When your significant other is unreachable, it doesn’t matter if it’s one town over, across states lines, or across an ocean. It may as well be Mars, get it? There’s always something you’re going to miss. Be happy you can Skype; my generation –and every other before it- never had that option. But back to the point –Experiencing, indefinitely, someone you love with a limited number of senses feels like a cheat. When it comes right down to it, touch is the sense I’d miss with supreme intensity. You can stimulate any intellectual part of someone’s brain with the right words or pictures, but you’re still going to miss touch.
Gangly awkward teen Gardner Elliot (Asa Butterfield) lives on Mars. Literally. Yeah, it’s a movie. He video chats regularly with surprisingly well-adjusted teen Tulsa (Britt Robertson), a foster child working her way through Colorado’s famous World Weary High School (home of the Cynics). Tulsa thinks Gardner is confined to Manhattan with a rare bone disease. Yeah, and I have a girlfriend in Canada.
You might ask, “why is there a teen boy on Mars?” And the answer is: years ago his mother, one of the original colonists, failed to mention she was pregnant when her rocket fired. She died in childbirth shortly after touchdown. And the pregnancy/birth was kept a secret for publicity reasons. Ugh. Everything about the space program in this film gets an F. A big fat F. Start with the press conference – six astronauts are going to Mars: five men and one “pregnant” woman, Sarah Elliot (Janet Montgomery). The scene is an airport hangar where Mr. Mars (Gary Oldman) treats the reporters as a dinner theater audience. Then the astronauts are trotted out behind plastic, not unlike some sort of zoo exhibit, and Sarah takes questions while the flunkees behind her smile awkwardly. I could tell from the just the screen shot that none of these other jokers had any lines of dialogue.
Mars happens. Child born. Mom dies. How would you like to be the surrogate mom astronaut (Carla Gugino)? When do you suppose they sprung that one on her? “Yeah, remember how you wanted to go to Mars? Like it’s a big deal and your life’s ambition and that’s why you became a scientist? Ok, here’s the thing, we will let you go, but there’s a catch. Just askin’, but do you have any babysitting experience? Oh, no reason.”
And the movie didn’t stop there. Gardner is 16 and hence is allowed two pieces of teen rebellion while confined to his astral prison. One is an obsession with “classic” film. Not porn, just semi-classic film, like one might see if one had to do a research project on, I dunno, Barbara Bel Geddes or Margaret Dumont. It makes more sense if you think of this Mars colony existing in the 1950s. 
Gardner uses the classic films to brush up on Earth etiquette. His other teen vice is joy riding the Mars rover. Ah, kids. Same everywhere, amIright?
The Space Between Us is only made tolerable when Tulsa and Gardner interact. I’m not really sure why they went to Mars for this tale; it could have been a kid born in a foreign embassy or somewhere else where people never escape, like West Virginia. The Mars thing is a complete Red Planet herring, and the fact that it was handled so poorly makes me wonder if this was greenlit at exactly the wrong stage of development.
Is everybody falling for Britt Robertson these days? She’s like the PG-13 Shailene Woodley. In the last year+ alone, she’s fallen in love in The Space Between Us, Mr. Church, The Longest Ride, and A Dog’s Purpose. Ironically, she does not fall in love in Tomorrowland, where she starred opposite George Clooney.
♪Girl I must warn you
I’m not sure that guy is quite your kind
Location serious
Put away Google Maps cuz you won’t find
It’s astronomical
Relationship is doomed right from the start
This planet’s deadly
Tellin’ you that Earth will burst his heart
Better tell him it is all over
He’s playin’ a diff’rent red rover
When you look in the night sky
See spec, use tech, gut check, then wave “goodbye”
That guy is Martian
Never trust a Ray Bradbury pile
That guy is Martian Martian♫
Rated PG-13, 120 Minutes
D: Peter Chelsom
W: Allan Loeb
Genre: The ultimate road trip
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Girls aged 13-15
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: NASA
♪ Parody inspired by “Poison”
