Tribeca 2022: Dreaming of Mars in 'Space Oddity'
Friday, June 24, 2022 at 1:43PM 
Raise your hand if you'd like to go live on Mars. Surely some hands went up, enjoying the fantasy. Now, planning for it as if was actually going to happen is something else entirely. Space Oddity tells the deeply entertaining story of one man who is certain that it's going to happen, that he'll soon be living on another planet...
After enduring a family tragedy, Alex (Kyle Allen) has one goal in life: to go to Mars. He trains every day to be part of a private trip to colonize the planet. This has everyone around him, including his family (Madeline Brewer, Carrie Preston, and Kevin Bacon), worried that it's a scam. When he goes in to get an insurance policy for this unprecedented trip, he meets Daisy (Alexandra Shipp). She looks at him in a different way, seeking to understand and get to know him rather than to judge him delusional. The two form a warm bond, which is set for a melancholy end given Alex's plans of imminent departure from the planet.
Space Oddity is a great little title and it's fitting too, for a movie that is uniquely wondrous experience. With actress Kyra Sedgwick taking on directorial duties (and her husband Kevin Bacon in the cast), there's a genuine playfulness happening here. The movie takes Alex at his word, wearing the same mission t-shirt each day and dryly telling anyone who will listen that he's going to Mars as if it's a fact that no one could possibly debate. He believes in it wholeheartedly. Even if it's not real, it's hard not to be enticed by the devotion he expresses to this otherworldly plan.
While Allen is great in the lead role, it's Shipp who truly steals the show. The actress, a rising star you've probably seen in Love Simon, tick, tick...BOOM! and Asking for It, has a wonderful sensibility which makes her a radiant focal point of this film. She infuses sweetness and terrific humor into all of her scenes. Brewer, best known as Janine from The Handmaid's Tale, is also great, with The Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg donning a humorous Russian accent for his supporting role. Space Oddity is an entertaining exploration of people and the things that motivate them, legitimately or not. As a film, it's a true winner. A-
Space Oddity is screening in the Spotlight Narrative section at the 2022 Tribeca Festival.