Review by Jane Freebury
A mission on
Mars is aborted during a wild storm. One crew member is left behind, presumed
killed by flying debris, but the rest of the crew escape and begin their long journey
home. At NASA they notice that equipment at the abandoned habitat is being
moved around. It can mean only one thing. The man left for dead is still alive.
A rescue mission
would probably arrive too late to save him. Stuff of legend? Enter
distinguished director Ridley Scott (Gladiator,
Thelma & Louise, Black Hawk Down).
So how does
the stranded astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) feel about his predicament? Once
he has operated on himself to remove a piece of equipment that lodged in his
gut during the storm, he can focus. And once he's recognised the imminent
perils of suffocation, dying of thirst, starvation, implosion, and going
crazy—'Yeah, I'm fucked'— he's remarkably cheerful. He sets to with the math: there's
no time to spare.
How many
days does he have until a rescue—we're talking a four-year wait—and how many
meals to go with it? Figuring out there's a pretty big shortfall, Watney plants
a potato farm within the habitat, fertilising it with his own poo and watering
it by burning rocket fuel. It's a cool ad for the benefits of survival training
— and for knowing your science, which when one's life depends on it, is
suddenly rivetting. Although we may not have expected it to be, sharing
Watney's plight is fun.
His sense
of humour helps. After all, what's not to like about being 'the first person
alone on a planet', first to climb that hill, first to plant crops? First at
everything? Watney keeps his own company
pretty well. He starts a video diary, sharing a joke with us and the screen,
refusing to be overwhelmed by the situation. It’s some situation, you have to
admit.
Damon as a
stoic, sensible biologist is the perfect foil for the dramatic excesses a story
like this can induce. The grandeur of the locations (many shot in Wadi Rum,
Jordan) is stunning, but Scott has mostly gone against his instincts for glory this
time.
Oddly,
there doesn't seem to be a loved one at home to help keep him going, though
parents get a mention. And whether he survives or not is in the hands of the
team. We could have done with a lot less from the characters back at HQ, when it's his fellow crew still travelling
through space who rise to the occasion.
The Martian is a surprise from a director who likes to tackle
the grand questions. When
bombastic past ventures from Scott like Prometheus and Kingdom of Heaven struggled with weak writing, his new film obviously
benefits enormously from the novel of the same name by Andy Weir on which it is
based. A great image isn't necessarily worth a thousand words.
This
struggle for survival, day by day, when each tiny mishap could spell the end is
far from grim or apocalyptic. The Martian
turns out to be a refreshing surprise, not least for its jovial 1970s can-do
pragmatism and often jaunty soundtrack. And Damon makes it real.
It’s taken me
a little while to get to see this. I thought the solitary survival thing had
been really well done by Sam Rockwell in Moon,
and at sea with Tom Hanks in Cast Away
and Robert Redford in All is Lost, so
why rush to see another? Turns out it's worth it.
3.5 Stars
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