R-Rated Sci-Fi Adventure On Netflix Gives Comedian A Surprising Drama
Every so often, Adam Sandler puts on a dramatic face and surprises all of us with his acting chops in a way that you’d never see in a Happy Madison production. In my own personal headcanon, Sandler knows he’s a skilled actor, but would rather spend his time belting out screwball comedies that are written by committee because they’re guaranteed money makers and probably don’t feel like “work” for him at this point in his career because he’s just acting silly with his friends, casting his personal heroes in ridiculous cameos, and filming on location at places where he wants to hang out during his down time. 2024’s Spaceman, however, is one of those films like Uncut Gems or Punch-Drunk Love that pops up out of nowhere once every several years that demonstrates just how serious Sandler can be when he’s given a compelling reason to stop being silly and using his massive, egg-shaped head to emit noises that aren’t in that ridiculous yelling voice that has carried him through most of his career.
The Chopra Cloud Is A Lonely Place
Set in a space shuttle found hurtling through space beyond Jupiter in the search of a mysterious cloud known as Chopra, Spaceman sees an isolated Jakub Prochazka (Adam Sandler) fighting to keep his sanity as he finds himself six months into a solo space mission. With a baby on the way, and his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan), distancing herself from him because he has constantly used his career as a cosmonaut to avoid his Earthly obligations, Jakub becomes despondent and depressed as his mental state deteriorates the longer he finds himself talking to the walls and desperately seeking the companionship that any human being would need under these circumstances.
Jakub’s questionable mental state in Spaceman is exacerbated by the Chopra cloud itself, which causes him to have a series of hallucinations in the form of flashbacks to his time on Earth with Lenka between his missions. While these hallucinations could be chalked up to Jabub’s profound feelings of loneliness caused by his mission, he has a more inexplicable encounter with a giant telepathic spider that finds its way onto the ship, whom he names Hanus (voiced by Paul Dano). Hanus, though menacing in his appearance, appears to be a helpful extraterrestrial, as he keeps Jakub company, gives him advice, and uses his presence to help him feel not so lonely on the ship.
Open To Interpretation
Mirroring the classic psychological thriller sentiment in the sense that it’s never made explicitly clear whether Jakub is actually in contact with a real extraterrestrial who boarded his ship, or simply hallucinating his way through the final leg of his mission as a means to cope with his crippling loneliness, Spaceman intentionally leaves this dynamic open to interpretation. Whether these exchanges are real or a figment of Jakub’s imagination are irrelevant, however, because either way he has to confront his personal demons as he finds himself traveling further from home as he approaches Chopra, which Hanus tells him may very well be leftovers from the big bang, marking the beginning of the known universe.
Struggling with the fact that his personal life is falling apart, possibly irreparably, Jakub faces the reality that’s in front of him (or in his mind) with the company of Hanus, who only becomes more confused by humanity and their various emotional idiosyncrasies as the story progresses.
Sandler Looks The Part
Adam Sandler’s portrayal of a distressed astronaut in Spaceman is a monumental moment in his career because I don’t think I saw him wearing a single Hawaiian shirt in the film – even during his flashback scenes. Wardrobe notwithstanding, Sandler looks as exhausted and world-weary as you would expect of anybody who’s been away from home in cramped quarters for half a year in a setting that basically puts him in a state of solitary confinement. With massive bags under his eyes accompanied by a disheveled beard, Sandler’s depiction of Jakub is subdued and introspective, which is something you don’t often see in his Happy Madison films that are all over Netflix.
At this point in time, we all know that Adam Sandler knows how to play it straight when he’s tasked with taking on a dramatic lead role, but Spaceman is all the more impressive because he doesn’t have much other acting talent to riff off of aside from his radio calls to his technician, Peter (Kunal Nayyar), and his commanding officer, Commissioner Tuma (Isabela Rossellini). What’s more, during most of these exchanges, his delivery is so deadban and unwilling to deal with BS that there actually is quite a bit of dry humor in Spaceman in all the right places, like when he’s trying to get his toilet to stop running so loudly when he’s trying to sleep.
Streaming Spaceman On Netflix
GFR SCORE
Thanks to its singular set and bare-bones cast, Spaceman plays out like a bottle episode you’d see in a television series in the sense that there’s not a whole lot happening. But the “nothing” that Jakub experiences is kind of the point because it demonstrates just how fragile the human psyche is without any form of tangible companionship to keep it from going off the rails.
Will the Spaceman find his way home and repair his fractured relationship with his wife before his child is born? Or will he continue to float through the nothingness of space in search of answers in his profound state of loneliness? To find out, all you have to do is stream Spaceman on Netflix the next time you’re looking for a thoughtful sci-fi drama with the most unassuming star as he unpacks his memories with the help of a giant space spider who possesses telepathic abilities.
