SNAPSHOT
Proxima sees Eva Green’s character, European Space Agency astronaut Sarah, prepare for a year-long mission aboard the International Space Station across the ESA’s various training facilities (real-life facilities director Alice Winocour was given access to while making the film).
While in training, Sarah struggles to balance the rigorous demands her mission places on her body and psyche with sexist co-workers, a fractured relationship with her ex-husband (Lars Eidinger), and an increasingly fraught bond with her young daughter, Stella (Zélie Boulant), as the young girl tries to reconcile her mother’s impending absence. (synopsis (c) Gizmodo)
Hard on the heels of the sublimely wonderful Ad Astra, which underscores once again why space is the perfect setting for ruminative, thoughtful and affecting drama, comes the Anna Winocour-directed Proxima, a film which makes it clear that great achievements are usually only achieved after equally commensurate sacrifices.
Such as leaving your daughter behind for a considerable period of time, just as she’s in the middle of the messy business of growing up.
It’s just of the relationships that come under strain in this emotionally-drama story which just recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
Lest you think this is just another Ad Astra retread, Gizmodo is adamant it is most definitely not.
“To be fair to Alice Winocour’s new movie … there are plenty more things that push Proxima away from Ad Astra’s immediate orbit. For one, it’s a little more rooted in hard science than it is science-fictional, setting itself in much nearer present than the relatively near future of James Grey’s new space-and-sadness epic. There’s also a lot more French. That’s a big difference!”
Proxima opens in France on 27 November and UK on 17 April 2020; an Australian premiere date has not yet been announced.