ZERO SPOILERS: SPACEMAN (2024)

Some might not think that the name Adam Sandler and the word "nuanced" belong in the same sentence. They most certainly do, at least when you're talking about his serious films. He's damn good. He's also the best thing about Spaceman, although his co-star has certain otherwordly charms.

Let me cut to the chase. This is a philosophical movie. If that makes you run for the door, hold on for just a moment. You might still like it, although some might find it a little slow. Still, give it a chance. It raises important questions in provocative ways.

Spaceman is decidedly not as triumphant and original as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but it's in the same category. In both films, the casting is perfect: a comedian whose zany humor seems informed by an aching sense of being lost, of being less than. Spaceman also owes quite a bit spiritually, and in some ways visually, to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I'd have to say that more than anything else, Spaceman is a story about our mysterious relationship to the world, to our pasts, and to love. We all, I think, long to sail until we fall off the edge of the world and are only just a little less happy simply to stay home.

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This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. ―Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”―Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

Now look at the people In the streets, in the bars We are all of us in the gutter But some of us are looking at the stars ―The Pretenders, Message of Love