Spacerape. While the sci-fi drama High Life explored many thoughts over the course of two hours, the prevailing one, unfortunately, is spacerape. This isn’t to say spacerape by itself precludes greatness; after all, spacerape is essentially the most significant plot point in, arguably, the scariest movie ever made, Alien. And yet, I gotta imagine that when you write your script, present it to a studio, get the green light, storyboard, shoot, and edit over the course of months or even years, nobody along that entire chain says, “Gee, I really hope the viewer understands this picture is about spacerape.”
We know something is wrong immediately. There are no babies on spaceships. And where did everybody go leaving just Monte (Robert Pattinson) and a baby? Oh, bunch of bodies. I see. Well, that’s not good. Guess it’s the full Monte for all on-board duties including maintenance and gardening. Monte flinches when the power goes out temporarily. It’s easy to see why; there isn’t an electrician for about four light-years. Boy, it’s a good thing nobody ordered cable; now there’s a wait.
The film happily takes us back in time when its crew lived and there were no babies, nor any pregnancies. On board are a series of losers, all sacrificed for “science.” What science is being studied? Who knows. The film implies the likely suicide mission involves taking energy from a black hole and returning. Defying standard sci-fi convention, the ship itself has all the aerodynamics of a foot locker. It’s basically a large UPS package traveling nearly the speed of light. Gee, hope you got tracking on this thing. And, I swear, if there’s a COD requirement, I’m sending it right back! No, I don’t care how long it took to get here. No, I don’t care the company went out of business three years ago. They told me no back-end charges.
Now, on the ship, you’d expect fancy computers and science experiments. Of the former, there seems to be technology leftover from the early 1990s, on the latter, there’s science all right. But what the Hell are you studying that requires daily semen samples? The eldest ship occupant, Dibs (Juliette Binoche) – is she an actual doctor?—has some crazy on-going fertility study with the men and women on the vessel. This seems like it should be provocative or at least alluring, right? It isn’t. There’s a whole celibacy/mingle-fail going on that makes the frequent sampling and gynecological exams merely perfunctory. Wow, movie; you’ve taken all the fun out of sex.
“Oh, but wait!” High Life protests. For intermission, we finally get to see where Doctor Dibs releases her tension: In a thoroughly indulgent self-gratification chamber that sort of a combination of a shower stall, that sex table George Clooney builds in Burn After Reading, and the Orgasmatron from Sleeper. Why is it important that a floating space canister the size of a dump truck and housing 8 to 10 have its own sex chamber? And is there any partner sex going on inside it … ever or is it all essentially masturbatory relief?
It doesn’t matter. Nothing in this film matters. Such a disappointment. High Life starts off with this fascinating premise about a single father alone in space … and devolves into scores of confusing details and dead end conversations. Do I care about people stuck in the same living space for years? Sure. But a lot less if I don’t know why they’re stuck or what they’re doing about it. For all the grand scheming of space and murder and sex and black holes, High Life is a fairly empty film, one easily forgotten and shoved to the rear of the galaxy.
♪I live in
My pajamas
Don’t take no
Nostradamus
To predict necromancy
Cuz we’re all gonna die here
Stuck in this foot looker
Oh oh oh
It’s a high, High Life
Head to oblivion
Oh oh oh
It’s a high, High Life♫
Rated R, 113 Minutes
Director: Claire Denis
Writer: Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Geoff Cox
Genre: The least sexy sex stuff ever
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Sci-fi junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Clarity junkies
♪ Parody Inspired by “Wild Wild Life”
