movie review ad astra

There have been numerous sci-fi films about people who had to go to the reaches of space to find truths within themselves but none quite like James Gray ’s masterful “Ad Astra.” Thematically dense and visually sumptuous, “Ad Astra” may not work for those seeking an action/adventure thrill ride—it’s more “Solaris” than “ Gravity ” or “ The Martian ”—but it works wonders below the surface, serving as an examination of masculinity, a commentary on how we become our fathers, and can even be read as a search for an absent God. This is rare, nuanced storytelling, anchored by one of Brad Pitt ’s career-best performances and remarkable technical elements on every level. It’s a special film.

Roy McBride (Pitt) is the coolest man in a spacesuit. In the near future, when space travel is more prevalent, McBride is legendary as someone whose BPM never rises above 80, even when he’s plummeting to Earth as he does in an early scene. The cause for that heavenly dive from a tower that reaches from the ground into space is a power surge that devastates the entire planet, killing thousands of people. The suits in charge of space exploration inform McBride that they have traced the source of the surge back to an anti-matter device stationed near Neptune, which just happens to be the last place anyone heard from a famous mission called The Lima Project. The objective for them was to go to the furthest reach of our solar system and look around at the rest of the universe, trying to find intelligent life. And it just happened to be captained by Roy’s father, H. Clifford McBride ( Tommy Lee Jones). For years, Roy has believed his father was dead, but now he may not only be alive but behind an attack on Earth. He is sent to Mars to attempt to communicate with a father he has thought dead for years, in the hope that a reply will allow them to pinpoint his interstellar location.

Earthly disasters possibly caused by a creator who has been absent as the world has lost hope—the religious allegory embedded in “Ad Astra” is crystal clear if you look for it, but never highlighted in a way that takes away from the film’s urgency. Science fiction is often about search for meaning, but this one literally tells the story of man’s quest to find He who created him and get some answers, including why He left us behind. McBride’s journey takes him first to the moon, which has been briefly reimagined as a tourist trap, complete with a Subway, and then to Mars, which is the furthest reach that man has colonized. As in Gray’s last film, “ The Lost City of Z ,” there’s an element of how journey and exploration change a man. The hero with the perfect BPM starts to feel his pulse elevate as he leaves the comforts of his routine and his home, and as the stakes of his adventure rise. And Gray never loses the human intimacy of his story, keeping us tied to McBride’s POV, experiencing only what he does and knowing only what he does. The result is a film that feels both massive and deeply personal with its themes, which is no easy feat.

Don’t get me wrong, while this is a deeply philosophical film there are also traditional action elements and what feel like real stakes throughout McBride’s journey. People die. People make mistakes. People are selfish, scared, and greedy. It feels like McBride’s encounters with others along his journey, including characters played by Donald Sutherland and Ruth Negga , are designed to illuminate the humanity within him. The perfect man who fell to Earth becomes imperfect as he reaches ever closer to his creator, and as he sees the imperfections of those around him.

Through it all, Pitt carries the emotional and physical weight in one of the most subtle and graceful performances of his career. A lot of directors would have been too enraptured with the grandeur of the space around him or the details of the interstellar travel, but Gray allows the camera to linger on Pitt’s face in ways no other director really has before, and it leads to what’s arguably Pitt’s most complex performance. Pitt avoids showy choices at every turn, but he also doesn’t err in the other direction and make McBride too stoic. It’s a perfectly calibrated performance. With his work here and in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” 2019 is the best year of his career. They’re both instant classic performances, and in such completely different ways, illustrate his underrated range as an actor.

Of course, as with all of Gray’s films, the craftsmanship here is top-notch. The delicate use of color in different sections of the film from the black-and-white of the moon to a rusty red of Mars and beyond makes for a mesmerizing visual palette, and the cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema sometimes echoes his work on “ Interstellar ” in how it balances extreme close-ups of masked space travelers with the vastness of space. Also particularly effective is the score by Max Richter , which is somehow both intimately eerie and grandiose at the same time.

We are in an era of what some are calling highbrow sci-fi as films like “Gravity,” “ Arrival ,” and “Interstellar” make high profits and reap major awards consideration. Neither seems likely for “Ad Astra.” It’s a bit too strange to be a major box office hit, and it’s being released by a studio in flux as it transitions to Disney ownership. Still, time will be kind to Gray’s film. It may take place in the future, but it says something that will always be current about our quest for meaning in a world in which it sometimes feels like that which we used to believe in and rely on no longer comforts us in the same way. “Ad Astra” is deeply moving with lines and ideas in its final scenes that worked on my emotions in ways I wasn’t at all expecting. Be patient with it. Invest in it. The destination is worth the journey.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Brad Pitt as Roy McBride
Tommy Lee Jones as Clifford McBride
John Ortiz as General Rivas
Greg Bryk as Chip Garnes
Kimberly Elise as Lorraine Deavers
Ethan Gross

Cinematographer

Hoyte van Hoytema
John Axelrad

Composer (additional music by)

Lorne Balfe
Max Richter

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‘Ad Astra’ Review: Brad Pitt Orbits the Powers of Darkness

The latest from the director James Gray centers on an astronaut whose mission into deep space becomes a voyage of self-discovery.

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‘Ad Astra’ | Anatomy of a Scene

James gray narrates a moon rover sequence from his film, starring brad pitt..

“Hi, I’m James Gray. I’m the co-writer and director of ‘Ad Astra.’ We had thought for a while about what the moon might be like in the next 50 to 100 years and what it would take to settle the moon and how we probably wouldn’t be able to settle the moon in certain parts. So we tried to conceive of a sequence, which illustrated the chaos of what it might mean to adhere to treaties about certain parts you couldn’t go to the moon, and if that would mean lunar pirates. Probably, it would. And so we created an action scene around that concept. The goal for the scene was really twofold, I’ll say. One was to have it play as a very subjective experience— the strangeness of being on the moon to sell the kind of one-sixth gravitational pull, but also to illustrate what it means when there’s a total lack of order. And that was really the ambition.” “Roy?” “Yes, Colonel.” “Look at this, the big blue marble. It never ceases to amaze me.” “But it was really our attempt to extrapolate, to think about essentially what it would mean to settle territory and who gets to own what. And that has never resolved itself peacefully in the entire history of the human race. So why it would be different on the moon? We have no idea.” “Lieutenant, you clocking this?” “In an ordinary action sequence, the issues are how to shoot a stunt safely and superbly with a lot of impact. But this represented some very weird, difficult challenges, one of which was how to simulate one/sixth gravitational pull. Additionally, how to make sure that it looked like the moon. So my first idea, which of course is always wrong, was we’re going to shoot in the desert. And we will then figure out a way to color time the sky that’s blue, a jet black. And then we’ll take the color out of the sand, and we’ve got it. Well, what we wound up doing was shooting the sequence in the desert. And it presented huge and almost impossible logistical challenges. The first was, of course, well, the desert does have life. So all of the surfaces turned out to be useless. The second was that the sky, sometimes had clouds and sometimes had gradations. So even though we shot it in part with an infrared camera, which would turn the blue to black, it still didn’t turn it all the way black. So the sequence had to be almost like visual effects, heavily augmenting the practical stunts that we did. And then, of course, there was the attempt to simulate one-sixth gravity. And that was a lengthy trial where we experimented the different frame rates for the film. And ultimately, we decided between 32 and 36 frames per second as opposed to the usual 24 frames per second simulated for some reason what our experiences of what one-sixth gravity would look like. And may I say that the strange fact of the scene is that when we had to replace all of the surface and get rid of the desert, get rid of the vegetation, we found ourselves using the very high-quality Hasselblad photographs that were taken on the moon in the Apollo missions. With a computer. And you cut out around the wheels, and you cut around the shape of the Rover itself. And you replace the ground. And the replacement background was the photographs of the moon that were taken over a 20 to 30 year period. And so when they’re driving, what’s zooming past the wheels is a series of lunar photographs. And so the actual surface you’re seeing is the lunar surface.” [HEAVY BREATHING]

By Manohla Dargis

In “Ad Astra,” an adventure tale weighed down b y the burdens of masculinity, Brad Pitt plays an astronaut in flight. The film is a lovely, sincere and sometimes dopey confessional about fathers and sons, love and loss that takes the shape of a far out if deeply inward trip. As in many expeditions, the journey doesn’t simply progress; it stutters and freezes and periodically backslides. Yet each step — the story begins on Earth and soon rockets to the dark side of the moon — is a reminder that in order to get found, you need to get lost.

For the most part, the film’s heaviness is a virtue, even when its director, James Gray, slips into grandiosity. It’s also welcome, given how many American movies embrace the trivial as a commercial imperative. Somewhat of a throwback, especially in his commitment to thoughtful adult stories, Gray makes films like “The Immigrant” that are insistently dark — both thematically and visually — about complicated people navigating complex realities. His under-loved last film, “The Lost City of Z,” tracks an early-20th-century explorer who travels far into the Amazon carrying the sins of Western civilization with him. It ends badly.

As an exploration of masculinity and its discontents, “Ad Astra,” set in a credible near future, plays very much like a thematic, somewhat obsessive bookend to “The Lost City of Z.” Each film focuses on skilled men who have embraced (with various degrees of knowing) ways of being in the world that have brought them public rewards at personal cost. Much like his Amazon-bound counterpart, Pitt’s astronaut, Maj. Roy McBride, has earned praise and renown, not always comfortably. McBride is also instructively isolated and earthbound when the film opens, a moment which finds him murmuring in voice-over before he scrambles onto, and soon falls from, a dizzyingly high antenna meant to locate extraterrestrial life.

The figure of the falling man isn’t new — Adam, Icarus and Don Draper all tumble — though it gained new meaning on Sept. 11 with Richard Drew’s harrowing photograph of an unidentified man plummeting from one of the twin towers. McBride’s plunge visually echoes that heartbreaking picture, although, after spinning around and deploying his parachute, he manages to land. The entire episode foreshadows a longer, more tortuous fall that begins when McBride is sent on a fairly dubious operation in deep space to contact his father (Tommy Lee Jones, in a forceful, Ahab-esque turn). A much-admired astronaut, the father presumably died leading another mission, effectively abandoning his son.

Things go badly, of course; they must. Before long McBride has set off — much like his “Lost City of Z” counterpart and Martin Sheen before him in “Apocalypse Now” — on what seems to be another iteration of “Heart of Darkness.” That’s particularly the case when McBride watches transmissions of his father talking about his mission that suggest the older man has gone mad, having succumbed (as Conrad puts it) to “the powers of darkness.” And while McBride has followed in his father’s footsteps, including in a disastrous personal life, the closer he comes to communicating with his dad the more that path looks like a dead end.

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Ad Astra Reviews

What is remarkable about Ad Astra is that Gray set out to re-establishing what it means to be a hero.

Full Review | Jul 31, 2024

Some have called Ad Astra First Reformed in space, a branding I’m not convinced by, but I did find it enjoyable overall.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 14, 2024

Brad Pitt's journey to Neptune is intentionally emotionless in James Gray's Ad Astra, a stunning tale of identity, self-discovery and rebirth.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 30, 2023

With a subtle yet powerful performance, Brad Pitt carries the whole story to safe harbor with tremendous help from the eyegasmic visuals. Very well-shot, well-edited, with an immersive score, and gorgeous cinematography.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 24, 2023

Ad Astra showcases the struggle of looking into the abyss and explores how Roy’s father succumbed to it, and if Roy will suffer that same fate. This is where Ad Astra finds its strength.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 22, 2022

Ad Astra is as much about the void we create in our personal lives as it’s about space travel; we are more honest with complete strangers than we are with ourselves and the ones we love.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

(Gray) dazzles through his audacious uses of light, color and physics. His penetrating close-ups are just as compelling, never losing sight of the human element.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

Ad Astra is rooted in a human drama that unravels somewhere between Earth and the rings of Neptune, two stations as distant as the storys father and son.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 23, 2022

Episode 49: Hustlers / Ad Astra / Two Lovers / ALTIPLANO

Full Review | Original Score: 88/100 | Oct 18, 2021

I loved that it really centered on Brad Pitt's character, and his journey... I personally think [Tommy Lee Jones] is a little bit wasted.

Full Review | Sep 20, 2021

While on a quest to discover other intelligent beings in this galaxy, Ad Astra instead tells us that there are still plenty of discoveries to be made in the people around us.

Full Review | Sep 5, 2021

...the build up is more effective that the take-away, which isn't quite as rich or developed as the quest...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 13, 2021

A selfish story about selfishness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 30, 2021

It's thrilling, adventurous and beautiful to look at, while also provoking deep philosophical and emotional questions in viewers along the way.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2021

Nary an emotive wince did Ad Astra wring from me with its tale of paternal woes writ interplanetary. Not a tear was jerked -- they all froze in their ducts like ice.

Full Review | Jul 2, 2021

Ad Astra is first-person cinema at its finest: an intimate, insular study of tortured masculinity, pulsating with an air of gentle melancholy that tugs at the heartstrings.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 25, 2021

Ad Astra is visually stunning as well as emotionally devastating.

Full Review | Original Score: 10 | Jun 24, 2021

A sci-fi masterpiece as thought-provoking as it entertaining.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 29, 2021

It's worth watching, especially if you enjoy a space film, but it just doesn't quite add up to a perfect cinematic equation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 25, 2021

Ad Astra is an extraordinary film that contains a vision for the future that's both appealing and cautionary, as well as a technical wizardry that makes our solar system feel reachable and wondrous at the same time.

Full Review | Feb 17, 2021

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Film Review: ‘Ad Astra’

Director James Gray proves he can make an epic space adventure, but Brad Pitt's stoic astronaut journeys a long way to face his daddy issues.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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In the opening sequence of “ Ad Astra ,” Roy McBride ( Brad Pitt ), a veteran U.S. astronaut, is doing what he does at the top of a space antenna, an elaborate piece of technological scaffolding so tall that it juts right up from the earth into the outer void. (It’s enough to make that famous 1932 photograph of construction workers eating lunch while sitting on a skyscraper girder not look vertigo-inducing.) Suddenly, there’s a mysterious power surge, which sends dozens of astronauts tumbling off the antenna. Roy bounds down a few levels to shut off the power, then makes his own escape, leaping off the structure and plunging to the earth below — an ultimate sky-dive that takes him from the blackness of space to the blueness of the atmosphere, until the earth begins to rear up and, at long last, he pulls his parachute strap.

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It’s a bedazzling and terrifying sequence, one that sets the bar literally sky-high for the sort of excitement we want from a lavishly scaled FX-driven space adventure. James Gray, the director and co-writer of “Ad Astra,” is the furthest thing you could imagine from a space dude; he’s a rigorous indie filmmaker known for such fine-grained fare as “The Lost City of Z,” “The Immigrant” and (my favorite Gray film) “Two Lovers.” But in taking on his first blockbustery sci-fi project, he handles the vast logistical challenges of staging an epic space adventure with a surefire hand and a sense of detail, pace, and control that are notably accomplished, if not quite Kubrickian. Gray proves beyond measure that he’s got the chops to make a movie like this. He also has a vision, of sorts — one that’s expressed, nearly inadvertently, in the metaphor of that space antenna. Watching “Ad Astra,” you may think you’ve signed on for a journey that’s out of this world, but it turns out that the film’s concerns are somberly tethered to Earth.

The movie is about how Roy, played by Pitt as a stoic loner of a 21st-century space cowboy, is sent on an enigmatic mission to Neptune to hunt down his father, a famous astronaut named Clifford McBride ( Tommy Lee Jones ), who 30 years before led Earth’s first voyage into deep space on a mission known as the Lima Project. Sixteen years into the mission, the ship, along with everyone on it, disappeared; Clifford has never been heard from since. But the power surge that disabled the space antenna was part of a larger destructive surge that’s now threatening the stability of the solar system. And guess what? The surge is emanating from the region around Neptune.

Roy has been chosen for the mission because he’s a fearless trouble-shooter, but mostly because he’s in the unique position of being able to send a message out to his father with the hope that he’ll respond. The added value of Roy’s presence — or maybe it’s a hindrance — is that when Clifford disappeared, he didn’t just abandon his mission, his country, his duty; he abandoned the young Roy. And Roy has been suffering from it ever since. In an early scene, his wife, played by Liv Tyler, walks out on him. The reason? He’s too distant, too numbly preoccupied with his disconsolate demons. “Ad Astra” is a Latin phrase that means “to the stars,” and in case you’re wondering where all this is heading, the answer is Neptune, but the real answer is: toward a standard drama of pain, tears, and reconciliation. In “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” Leonardo DiCaprio cried. In “Ad Astra,” Brad Pitt cries. The movie’s tagline should have been, “In space, no one can hear you cry about your absent-daddy issues.”

Roy’s journey to Neptune involves stopping at a series of manned way stations — first on the moon, then Mars — that echo the expository sections of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Fifty years after the 1969 moon landing, Gray’s vision of human space exploration is defiantly unromantic; the most memorable shot of the moon colony reveals that there’s a Subway there — not an underground travel system, but the sandwich chain. There’s also a mining war being played out among Earth’s powers, and Roy, to reach the launch station that will blast him off to Mars, has to go through a Mad Max-on-the-lunar-surface road battle that suggests the jumping-off point for a hell of an action movie.

This, however, is not that movie. Roy, in “Ad Astra,” endures prickly situations in space (attack by baboon? Go figure), but what the film cues us to see through its overuse of Roy’s solemn voice-over pronouncements (“What happened to my dad? What did he find out there? Did it break him? Or was he always broken?”) is that Gray isn’t just aping “2001.” He thinks he’s making “Apocalypse Now” in space, with Roy as the benumbed Willard figure and Jones’s Clifford — the fallen mystery commander who had his reasons — as a version of Col. Kurtz.

Gray’s films have often looked back to the New Hollywood ’70s, which is not a bad place from which to take inspiration. But I would suggest that there’s a bit of chutzpah to his flagrant evocation of a movie like “Apocalypse Now.” The “Heart of Darkness” template is, of course, anyone’s to draw upon, but what made Francis Ford Coppola’s film great is that he used Joseph Conrad’s classic as a frame on which to hang his psychedelic-slaughter vision of contemporary combat. In “Ad Astra,” “Apocalypse Now” is the frame on which Gray hangs … another frame. We’re still talking about “Apocalypse Now” 40 years later, but I’m not sure we’ll be talking about “Ad Astra” in four weeks.

Yet the movie, for what it is, isn’t a cheat. At heart, it’s a short story set in space, decorated with major FX (the double rings of the evanescent blue Neptune are its most memorable image), held together by Pitt’s stalwart presence. This actor rarely makes a false move, and the fact he’s now having a moment — the well-deserved “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” Oscar buzz — could help “Ad Astra” at the box office. Yet what would help it more is if the movie had a genuine wow factor baked into its retro sci-fi aesthetic. I hope James Gray, as a director, continues to explore uncharted worlds, but even his cult of fans may find it hard to get too excited over a movie that, beneath its eye-candy space trappings, is this conventional.

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Competition), Aug. 29, 2019. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 124 MIN.

Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Plan B, Keep Your Head Productions, RT Features, New Regency Productions, Bona Film Group, MadRiver Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox production. Producers: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, James Gray, Anthony Katagas, Rodrigo Teixeira, Arnon Milchan. Executive producers: Marc Butan, Jeffrey Chan, Paul Conway, Sophie Mas, Anthony Mosawi, Lourenco Sant’Anna, Michael Schaefer, Dong Yu.
Crew: Director: James Gray. Screenplay: James Gray, Ethan Gross. Camera (color, widescreen): Hoyte Van Hoytema. Editors: John Axelrad, Lee Haugen. Music: Max Richter, Lorne Balfe.
With: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga, John Ortiz, Loren Dean, Kimberly Elise.

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‘ad astra’: film review | venice 2019.

Brad Pitt toplines 'Ad Astra,' director James Gray's first foray into science fiction, playing an astronaut who travels to the far reaches of the solar system in search of his long-lost father.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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There’s no shortage of striking imagery in the space odyssey Ad Astra : a desolate lunar landscape, a man’s plummeting to Earth like a Tarot card figure tumbling from a burning tower, the lonely gleam of a spacecraft against a fathomless field of stars. Yet of all the film’s eloquent visuals, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema lights nothing with more care than Brad Pitt ‘s eyes. Zero-gravity fistfights notwithstanding, those baby blues are where the action is. They’re the movie’s highest-impact special effect.

Over the slowly unfolding story of astronaut Roy McBride, the actor reveals, with each shift in his gaze, the gradual awakening of an intensely self-contained character. Like Charlie Hunnam’s Percy Fawcett in The Lost City of Z (executive produced by Pitt), the protagonist of James Gray’s new film is a man on a mission. But Roy is no obsessed believer chasing a seemingly impossible dream; he’s a reluctant envoy on a top-secret assignment, a tight-lipped one-man search team seeking a national hero who’s probably gone mad — “Like I have a choice,” he muses bitterly.

Release date: Sep 20, 2019

Venice: 'Ad Astra' Director James Gray on Breaking Down "All-American Astronaut" Myth With Brad Pitt

A number of Roy’s encounters are little more than devices for dispensing information, cluing in him (and us) to the truth about his father and his ill-fated mission. However brief and pointed, they give terrific actors opportunities to punctuate the Roy-centric mood with fresh emotions and welcome friction. The indispensable Donald Sutherland delivers a beautiful mix of dire warning and rue as a retired colleague of Clifford’s, and Ruth Negga is all steely, grief-fueled determination as a Mars native with a connection to the doomed Lima Project.

Jones, seen in archival video messages and a present-day sequence, is an affectingly haunted figure. In the minimally conceived role of Roy’s estranged wife, the all too symbolically named Eve, Liv Tyler has little chance to make an impression but manages to do so nonetheless, in part because Gray has a knack for conveying backstory with a well-deployed shorthand of expressionistic flashback images. Much of that backstory, though, borders on cliché.

This sci-fi spin on Heart of Darkness is a self-conscious movie about a self-conscious man, a dutiful son who’s increasingly aware of how out of place he feels — in the organization he works for and in his own skin. Like those figures on the Tarot card, Roy is jolted awake by a terrible fall, and it’s only the first of several plunges he’ll take into some sort of abyss. His long climb back is the stuff of neatly myth-tinged storytelling mechanics. In a few quietly searing sequences, though, something else happens, charged and openhearted and lightning-bolt ragged: A wounded soul’s gaze illuminates the way.

Production companies: 20th Century Fox, Regency Enterprises, Bona Film Group, New Regency, Plan B, Keep Your Head, RT Features, MadRiver Pictures Distributor: 20th Century Fox Cast: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, John Ortiz, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Greg Bryk, Loren Dean, Kimberly Elise, John Finn, LisaGay Hamilton, Donnie Keshawarz, Bobby Nish, Natasha Lyonne Director: James Gray Screenwriters: James Gray, Ethan Gross Producers: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, James Gray, Anthony Katagas, Rodrigo Teixeira, Arnon Milchan Executive producers: Mark Butan, Lourenço Sant’Anna, Sophie Mas, Yu Dong, Jeffrey Chan, Anthony Mosawi, Paul Conway, Yariv Milchan, Michael Schaefer Director of photography: Hoyte Van Hoytema Production designer: Kevin Thompson Costume designer: Albert Wolsky Editors: John Axelrad, Lee Haugen Composer: Max Richter Additional music by: Lorne Balfe Visual effects supervisor: Allen Maris Supervising sound editor, sound designer: Gary Rydstrom Supervising sound editor: Brad Semenoff Casting director: Douglas Aibel Venue: Venice International Film Festival (Competition) Rated PG-13, 123 minutes

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'Ad Astra' Review: Brad Pitt Goes Interplanetary in a Stunning Space Epic

Come for Brad Pitt in space, stay for the stunning cinematography.

Warning: There are some mild spoilers for "Ad Astra" in the review below.

It's safe to say that " Ad Astra " is probably not the science fiction film you think it is. Anyone expecting "Independence Day" or some such holiday blockbuster might be disappointed, but any fan of art expressed through cinema, won’t be.

The movie stars Brad Pitt as Major Roy McBride : super cool under pressure, pride of Space Command and son of legendary astronaut H. Clifford McBride, played by Tommy Lee Jones.

Clifford McBride was the first human to reach both Jupiter and Saturn and a veteran of several deep space missions, which made him the perfect candidate to lead the Lima Project — a deep, deep space mission that would put a team in orbit around Neptune, beyond the influence of the Sun's radiation, to scan the universe for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Watch: See a Sneak Peek of 'Ad Astra' Moon Action! Video: Brad Pitt Talks 'Ad Astra' with in Space (Video)

Unfortunately, all contact with the mission was lost some time ago and the team is considered at the very least to be missing in action. That is until some strange energy pulses, like weaker and semi-repetitive gamma-ray bursts , strike Earth, causing catastrophic destruction. Referred to as the "Surge," these bursts have been deemed to come from the neighborhood of Neptune. Thus Pitt is called upon to travel to Mars and send a series of messages by focused laser transmission in an attempt to make contact with his father.

The movie is set in the near future, but it doesn't quite seem to successfully cement portraying futuristic technology whilst incorporating an extension of issues we currently have with space exploration. For example, when Pitt is sent freefalling from — what appears to be a space elevator as it's struck by the surge and explodes — we later find out wasn't a space elevator, but actually a giant radio antenna that extends from the planet's surface to low-Earth orbit. If the materials exist to build this, why hasn't a space elevator been built to remove the need for expensive and dangerous rocket launches?

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Related: 'Ad Astra' Sneak Peek: Moon Rover Chase Against Space Pirates

There's a pretty impressive looking moon base too plus a permanent settlement on Mars, not to mention some kind of ion-Epstein-warp-quantum-hyper-drive propulsion system that's capable of getting a vessel to Neptune in just 84 days. Voyager 2 took about 12 years .

Sadly then, some of the smaller details prevent a full cinematic immersive experience. Leaving the one-sixth gravity conditions on the moon aside — yup, that old chestnut — some interesting issues are touched upon, like the fact that there are conflicts over lunar territories and a Virgin Atlantic blanket and pillow cost $120 on the flight from Earth to the moon. During the "long" flight to Neptune, Pitt uses electro-stimulation to keep his muscles working, which was a nice touch, although quite what the direct stomach ingestion valve was all about wasn't adequately explored. (My editor thinks it's a feeding tube to let him sleep through the trip.)

And therein lies the problem; in some instances a great deal of attention has clearly been paid to get the details right and at other times, it hasn't.

Related: Epic 'Ad Astra' Trailer: Moon Buggy Chase and Outer Solar System

Director James Gray said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival that "Ad Astra" will feature "the most realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie."Gray also described the film as "sort of like if you got 'Apocalypse Now' and '2001' in a giant mashup and you put a little [Joseph] Conrad in there."

The " Apocalypse Now " vibe is undeniable, down to an almost parody of some iconic scenes as Pitt watches the last recordings his father ever made and asks, "What did he find out there ... in the abyss?" And Jones even sounds like Marlon Brando as he says, "The world awaits our discovery, my son."

It is perhaps just a little too similar in places and you can't help but think that Pitt is going to come out with something like, "At first I thought they'd given me the wrong dossier…" Particularly when he's reading his father's list of accomplishments and accolades to himself. Consequently, it's a little distracting at times.

There's also more than a nod to the other influence Gray mentioned, " 2001: A Space Odyssey " with some distinct camera angles and Pitt's ongoing psych evaluation that requires him to use phrases like, "I remain confident in the completion of this mission."

Regardless, Gray's most ambitious movie to date is a stunning spectacle and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema — whose credits include "Dunkirk" and " Interstellar " — excels, especially with the scenes on Mars and framing of shots of Ruth Negga within the Martian habitat. The close ups of Pitt too, throughout the duration of the movie, are very visually effective.

Related: 1st 'Ad Astra' Trailer Hints at Interplanetary Action with Brad Pitt

Following some shady shenanigans with Space Command , Pitt must stow away on a ship bound for Neptune to destroy the Lima Project spacecraft, now positively identified as the source of the surge.

He eventually reaches his father and along the way we learn that the Lima Project detected no signs of an alien civilization and thus reinforces the idea that we are in fact alone in the universe.

And while that notion works well in parallel with the deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction of Pitt's character, it is of course no basis to make that assumption definitive. Let's face facts, space is a pretty big place, chances are it's going to require either a wormhole or faster than light travel to reach the nearest indigenous alien intelligence. Ultimately, instead of looking for life up there, he instead concentrates on the life he is connected to down here, back on Earth; namely his wife, played by Liv Tyler, and family.

Related: 13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Aliens

In order that some sense of mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will be made concerning exactly how the movie ends. However, we will say this: when Pitt eventually returns to Earth, we desperately wanted his capsule to be opened by a group of apes dressed in black leather and holding rifles.

The screenplay and plot let this movie down considerably, but in the areas where it's lacking, Pitt's soulful, nuanced performance manages to pull it up and just about keep it above water. Not only must Pitt overcome moon pirates, rabid Norwegian space monkeys and the bureaucratic red tape of the government, but also some serious personal issues with his father, who was absent through most of Pitt's life, causing him to reflect on his role in his own family and even wonder whether an unavoidable transmission is taking place as Pitt seemingly becomes more like his father.

Factor in the stunning photography and this is a movie that's certainly enjoyable, but leaves you feeling that so much more could've been accomplished.

Epic 'Ad Astra' Trailer Features Moon Buggy Chase and Outer Solar System
2nd 'Ad Astra' Trailer Teases More Spectacular Sci-Fi Starring Brad Pitt
1st 'Ad Astra' Trailer Hints at Interplanetary Action with Brad Pitt

Follow Scott Snowden on Twitter . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

When Scott's application to the NASA astronaut training program was turned down, he was naturally upset...as any 6-year-old boy would be. He chose instead to write as much as he possibly could about science, technology and space exploration. He graduated from The University of Coventry and received his training on Fleet Street in London. He still hopes to be the first journalist in space.

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Ad Astra review: Brad Pitt delivers finest performance in moving sci-fi melodrama

What starts off stubbornly slow becomes mesmerising as you get used to its rhythm, article bookmarked.

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Dir: James Gray; Starring: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga. Cert tbc, 124 mins.

James Gray’s Ad Astra plays like a sombre, space set version of Apocalypse Now . The film is a brooding, atmospheric affair that features one of Brad Pitt ’s finest and most restrained performances. He plays Roy McBride, the Captain Willard-like astronaut on a secret mission to stop a series of catastrophic power surges wreaking havoc on planet earth.

The surges are linked to the Lima Project, an ill-fated expedition commanded by McBride’s father, the revered astronaut Dr Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). Sixteen years later, neither Roy’s father nor any of his crew have returned.

McBride is heard in voice-over, describing his voyage in a terse, matter of fact fashion which can’t help but evoke memories of Captain Kirk’s log in Star Trek . The difference is that he is on a solo mission. The further he ventures across the galaxy, the closer (inevitably) he comes to the heart of darkness. He is destined for a reunion with his long lost father but doesn’t know what kind of man his father has become.

As played by Pitt, McBride is an aloof and inscrutable figure. He struggles to show emotion or form friendships. Liv Tyler is seen fleetingly in oblique flashbacks as his ex-partner. It’s a testament to Pitt’s screen craft and charisma that he makes such an emotionally distant character so sympathetic and intriguing. Audiences will share his suspicion about everybody he encounters, whether the superficially genial old-timer, Colonel Pruitt (Donald Sutherland), one of his father’s oldest friends, or the close-cropped, Sigourney Weaver-like space officer played by Ruth Negga, who has as vexed a family connection to the Lima Project as McBride himself.

If you are prone to vertigo, Ad Astra will make you very queasy. Early on, a character loses his footing and falls thousands of feet. Watching the film, you feel you are taking the plunge with him.

Astronauts’ physical and mental capacity for their job are continually tested. McBride always passes. He is calm, steady, sleeps well and never has bad dreams, even when confronted with events that would drive less placid types to the verge of insanity. His mission will eventually take him to the further edges of the solar system but he has to stop off on the moon first. To maintain secrecy, he travels there on a commercial flight.

Gray, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Gross, has a barbed and satirical view of what a human outpost on the moon might look like. It’s a tourist trap. Lunar visitors can take selfies and buy cheap merchandise. There is even a branch of DHL to deliver parcels. The place is strangely tatty, a bit like a modern day airport or city centre gone to seed. The moon has attracted its share of outlaws and vagrants. Gray includes one scene in which space buggies are chased and attacked by some desperadoes. We may be in outer space but the scene is choreographed like a stagecoach chase in a John Ford movie.

Ad Astra also has clear overlaps with its director’s previous feature, The Lost City of Z , in which a British explorer is looking for a lost civilisation in the Amazon jungle, but really trying to exorcise his own demons by doing so.

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Early on, the pacing is stubbornly slow but once you become used to its rhythm, this is mesmerising fare. Max Richter’s minimalist score has a hypnotic effect. The music and the sound editing are interwoven in seamless fashion. The film is shot in awe-inspiring fashion by Hoyte van Hoytema, also the cinematographer on Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and Dunkirk . Intermittently the special effects are as spectacular as you might expect. We have the familiar scenes of astronauts clinging on to each other in outer space, conscious that if one lets go, the other will float off into oblivion. There are eye-popping explosions and the usual eerie images of earth seen from space.

Occasionally, in its lesser moments, the film is like a more earnest version of one of those B-movies in which the harassed and heroic humans fight to save the world. Such lines as “ultimate catastrophe is a very real possibility” sound a little corny.

Like Marlon Brando’s Kurtz in Apocalypse Now , Tommy Lee Jones’ McBride senior refuses to accept the constraints his commanding officers have tried to put on him. “I am free of your moral boundaries,” he declares belligerently at one stage. It becomes apparent, though, that this is as much an Oedipal story as it is a piece of dystopian science fiction. Director Gray’s inspiration is as much the mystical Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, as it is Kubrick or Coppola, Gravity or Interstellar . The real drama here is not whether or not apocalypse can be avoided but whether Brad Pitt’s character can reconcile himself with his father and overcome his own extreme emotional repression. In other words, in spite of all the jargon and the hardware, this is an intimate family melodrama at heart. Thanks to Pitt’s performance and Gray’s delicate direction, it turns into a very moving one.

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‘Ad Astra’ Review: Brad Pitt, Lost in Space

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Seek out the nearest jumbo screen and let filmmaker James Gray, a renegade visionary with a big reach and a knack for sneaky mischief, sweep you off ad astra (that’s “to the stars” in Latin). Getting lost in the space conjured up by the writer-director and the brilliant Dutch-Swedish cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema ( Interstellar, Dunkirk ) to screw with your head and throw off your equilibrium is part of the fun. Plus you’ll have Brad Pitt for company, which is good since he’s giving one of his best implosive performances as Major Roy McBride, an astronaut on a mission both profound and personal.

In essence, Ad Astra is a father-son story told on a cosmic scale. It’s not just Roy’s cool-under-pressure reputation that gets him picked for a top-secret mission to Neptune. It’s the fact that his famous-astronaut father, Clifford McBride ( Tommy Lee Jones ) went missing there three decades ago after heading the Lima Project on a search for intelligent life in the universe. But here’s the thing: Daddy might not be dead. He might, in fact, be somewhere on that remote planet playing Zeus by aiming power surges at Earth in an effort to destroy us. Clifford needs to be stopped and who better to do it than his son, setting up an Apocalypse Now in space as junior attempts to save or destroy his nutjob old man.

It’s a familiar plot, going back to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but Gray and co-writer Ethan Gross keep the action humming, at least in the beginning. An early scene shows Roy working on a space antenna that shoots up from the ground like a limitless beanstalk. Then, boom, one of those power surges sends workers plummeting to their death. Roy barely escapes by parachute. But the danger is established and Gray’s filmmaking is tremendously exciting.

The mission heats up when Roy, ordered by SpaceCom not to call attention to himself, flies commercial to the moon. It’s the near future where people do that kind of thing. And the sight of the moon littered with mall-like shops packs a wicked sting. Traveling by rover across the lunar surface, Roy is attacked by space pirates in a scene bursting with energy and suspense. Ditto a moment of zero-gravity, hand-to-hand combat. Then it’s off to Mars, where Natasha Lyonne shows up barking orders and Roy suits up for his space shot to Neptune, interrupted by the rescue of a space capsule — now occupied by something scary that spoiler etiquette should keep out of reviews.

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It’s here that the film leans in on solemnity. In voiceover, Roy expresses emotions we can’t see on his placid surface (“What happened to my dad? What did he find out there? Did it break him? Or was he always broken?”). In flashbacks, Liv Tyler shows up as Roy’s estranged wife, bemoaning his emotional coldness. References abound to other films about the loneliness and alienation that come with space travel, from Stanley Kubrick’s masterful 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Andrei Tarkovsky’s mindbending Solaris (1972) to Alfonso Cuaron’s Oscar-winning Gravity (2013) and Christopher Nolan’s hypnotic Interstellar (2014).

At times, these references weigh down the film. But Gray ultimately stamps Ad Astra with a touch that is uniquely his own. In The Lost City of Z, the film Gray made before he ventured into the cosmic void, the exploration into the unknown took place not in space but in the Amazonian jungle. Yet the sense of man against the elements persists. From Little Odessa, The Yards, We Own the Night, Two Lovers and The Immigrant — all dramas about countries, families, friends and lovers separated by outside forces — Gray holds focus on what makes us human.

He needed an actor of stellar skills to keep us in orbit, which he gets in Pitt, whose portrayal is a marvel of nuanced feeling. Playing a spacebound stoic who refuses to wear his emotions on his sleeve can keep an audience at a distance — see Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong in First Man — but Pitt avoids that trap. His scenes with Jones, who can do more with a squint that most actors with pages of dialogue, never push for effect but achieve a wrenching power. The 55-year-old actor is at the top of his game (see his work Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood ) and in Ad Astra, he digs deep into a character who finally sees past his duty to the job to his obligation to himself. Yes, you’ve heard this tale before. But Gray tells it with a grand scope and intimate sense of empathy that is nothing less than enthralling.

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Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the ... Read all Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe. Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.

Ethan Gross
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13 wins & 74 nominations total

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Roy McBride

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Trivia Unlike several contemporary films where CGI is used to depict the spacecraft and the vast space, director James Gray decided to use practical effects like models and props for the spacecraft exterior shots. Also, instead of using CGI for planets, he decided to use still images to portray the surface of the planets. This same technique was used in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) .
Goofs The distance from Tycho crater (where Roy lands on the Moon) to the center of Farside (where the "Cepheus" is located) is roughly 1,700 miles. Traveling at the speed shown and assuming no stops, Roy's lunar rover would take a couple of days to get there.

Roy McBride : [Last lines] I'm steady, calm. I slept well, no bad dreams. I am active and engaged. I'm aware of my surroundings and those in my immediate sphere. I'm attentive. I am focused on the essentials, to the exclusion of all else. I'm unsure of the future but I'm not concerned. I will rely on those closest to me, and I will share their burdens, as they share mine. I will live and love.

Crazy credits There is no fanfare during the 20th Century Fox logo.
Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: Ad Astra (2019)
Soundtracks Says Written and Performed by Nils Frahm Courtesy of Erased Tapes Music

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September 20, 2019 (United States)
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Sep 22, 2019
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Ad Astra Review

18 Sep 2019

It feels like we’ve been spoiled by space. Ever since Gravity seemingly changed the game, science-fiction has had to work harder than ever to impress us. It’s almost like the genre’s already peaked. Picking up the space-gauntlet, director James Gray quixotically heralded Ad Astra as being “the most realistic depiction of space ever”. And fair dos, this film is beautiful : from the glistening cinematography to artfully celestial framing to the seamless visual effects (some shots use actual photos of the moon’s surface), it all looks real.

What sets it apart from recent gravity-defying films, however, is the setting. This is a future that feels recognisably familiar and deeply plausible, a world in which space travel has become commercialised, normalised, and blighted by the same overpriced pillows as the budget airline. The wonder of space has been replaced by the mundanities and conflicts of Earth; the moon is a gaudy tourist trap and disputed territory, not unlike an episode of Futurama . Throughout, we’re drip-fed morsels of information about the new inter-planetary infrastructure and each new revelation is a delicious bit of speculative world-building, ‘sci-future-fact’ rather than sci-fi.

It’s a setting that also causes our nominal hero, Roy (Pitt), some serious melancholy. Outwardly, Roy is cold and uncaring, his pulse never skipping a beat, his focus always on the mission. But his pessimistic voiceover laments the deterioration of the space era and hints at some familial yearning for his estranged father, who may be behind the catastrophic electrical surges that are suddenly plaguing Earth. Truly, you don’t know abandonment issues until your dad is floating beyond Neptune.

Despite a dip in pace towards the end, it’s a fantastically well-staged adventure.

Roy’s narration sometimes sounds like a maudlin teenage diary (“I’ve let so many people down,'' he whines at one point), but he’s a fascinatingly flawed hero, as incapable of emotions as he is a capable astronaut. His odyssey through the inconceivable vastness of the solar system has something of Willard sailing up the river in Apocalypse Now : confronted by loneliness in an unforgiving environment, the indifference of death stalking at every corner.

For such an ambitious film, it’s remarkably meditative; set across billions of miles, it is always only interested in Roy’s interior life, the camera trained in heavy close-up on his tired-looking face. (Spare a thought for poor Liv Tyler, playing Roy’s wife, who is often not even in focus, making her similar role in Armageddon look positively generous.)

But despite a dip in pace towards the end, it’s also a fantastically well-staged adventure. There’s a (literally) head-spinning opening sequence at the ‘International Space Antenna’, an encounter with an unexpected space-primate, and a moon-buggy chase which offers a thrilling preview of what ‘Fast & Furious In Space’ might look like. It has fun, even if its leading man doesn’t.

Through all this, it manages to ponder the existential questions facing humanity, and brings it back to the humanity we need to face. That, above the realistic depictions of space, is probably its real achievement.

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I Was Wrong About Netflix's New Rambo & Reacher Action Movie "Replacement"

Kevin costner's western epic gains traction on streaming after $36m box office disappointment, horizon: an american saga chapter 2 review – 6 hours in & costner’s western still seems like tv [venice], bolstered by a great brad pitt performance and outstanding technical filmmaking, ad astra is an ambitious work that doesn't quite hit all its marks..

James Gray's Ad Astra , which went through principal photography in 2017, is the latest in a growing line of prestige space-based dramas to come out this decade. After being delayed multiple times (due to extensive visual effects work and the Disney/Fox merger), the film finally made its world premiere this August at the 2019 Venice Film Festival and is now playing in theaters nationwide. Cinephiles have had to wait patiently for this one, curious to see if it could become a major player in this year's Oscar race. While Ad Astra may not be the next Gravity or The Martian in terms of awards recognition, it's still (mostly) worth the wait. Bolstered by a great Brad Pitt performance and outstanding technical filmmaking, Ad Astra is an ambitious work that doesn't quite hit all its marks.

Pitt stars in Ad Astra as Major Roy McBride, son of esteemed U.S. astronaut Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). When Roy was a teenager, Clifford embarked on a deep space mission known as the Lima Project and presumably disappeared years into the expedition. But after electrical power surges sweep through Earth and endanger humanity's existence, U.S. Space Command has reason to believe Clifford is alive on Neptune. SpaceCom recruits Roy for a mission to establish contact with Clifford and see what can be done about the current situation.

Though Ad Astra has the grand scope of modern sci-fi pictures, the story it tells is very intimate and personal. The script, credited to Gray and Ethan Gross, deals with familial themes (particularly the relationship between fathers and sons) and the nature of humanity, giving viewers fascinating food for thought over the course of the two-hour runtime. This provides a sturdy foundation for Roy's character arc, though Ad Astra ultimately feels like it's missing a key ingredient to provide the punch Gray is going for. The film is very much indebted to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey , meaning some viewers might find Gray's approach a little too cold and distant. There are comparisons to be made to Interstellar and First Man here, but Ad Astra's emotional core isn't as affecting as the sentiment behind those films. That said, Gray certainly deserves credit for his aspirations, and Ad Astra remains a compelling and interesting watch despite any shortcomings with the script.

Where Gray's vision truly shines is through Ad Astra's technical aspects. The film is a marvel to behold on the big screen, thanks in large part to fantastic visual effects and Hoyte van Hoytema's (who coincidentally shot Interstellar for Christopher Nolan) breathtaking cinematography. Ad Astra is a film that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible, so the IMAX premium is definitely worth it in this case. Granted, Gray doesn't necessarily reinvent the wheel in regards to portraying space on film, but he demonstrates a sharp eye for alluring visuals and creative world-building. And while Ad Astra is definitely a character-based drama, Gray stages a couple of exciting set pieces that illustrate the dangers of space.

On the heels of his acclaimed turn in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood this summer, Pitt continues a banner 2019 with another strong outing here. In Ad Astra's Pitt's performance is very understated and subtle, and he's able to tap into Roy's inner turmoil and conflict in an effective manner. As written, the character can come across as a bit emotionally detached, though Pitt has moments where he conveys Roy's feelings in ways that feel grounded. This is far from the "showiest" role in Pitt's career, but he proves to be an excellent fit and continues to showcase his range in interesting fashion. In contrast, much of the supporting cast isn't warranted as much screen time to leave a noticeable impression. The exception there is Jones as Clifford, who gets a couple of scenes to flesh out his portrayal of a man gone mad. It may not be enough to have the Roy/Clifford dynamic pay off in the way Gray intended, but Jones is an ever-reliable presence.

Ad Astra may not be generating as much buzz as some of the other titles that played at film festivals this year, but those in the mood for some heady sci-fi should still make the time to check it out. Even if the movie does keep the audience at an arm's length in regard to its emotional component, Gray should be commended for reaching for the stars and delivering something that's thoughtful and visually-stunning. Ad Astra's craftsmanship is among the best of 2019, and Pitt carries the film on his shoulders by demonstrating his versatility. The film falls just short of realizing its larger ambitions, but it's an admirable effort all-around.

Brad Pitt stars in Ad Astra as astronaut Roy McBride, who embarks on a mission to Neptune to find his missing father (Tommy Lee Jones) in the outer reaches of space. Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland appear in this 2019 sci-fi movie directed by James Gray.

Ad Astra is now playing in U.S. theaters. It runs 122 minutes and is rated PG-13 for some violence and bloody images, and brief strong language.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments!

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Ad Astra Review: A Stealthy, Beautiful, Evocative Take on Mental Health

Ad Astra is as much about the void we create in our personal lives as it’s about space travel; we are more honest with complete strangers than we are with ourselves and the ones we love. Gray’s film is a stealthy, beautiful, evocative take on mental health.

James Gray’s ( The Yards, We Own the Night, Two Lovers ) new space epic has a tone and mood all its own. Like most of his films, they have a great sense of direction, even placement, and purpose, unlike many big-screen blockbusters. It’s all about the subtexts that will often speak louder than what the characters are saying or what their actions are speaking. Ad Astra is just as much about space travel as it is about the void we put between us and our personal relationships. Whether it’s about fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, or those pesky ties that bind.

The setup of the film begins with multiple solar flares striking the earth, killing thousands, and causing uncontrolled chaos in the process. The film is set in the not-so-distant future, and the events have set the world in dire straights, flipping societies on their axis. Almost all the Earth’s countries, political groups, and subgroups have turned into terror organizations by giving into moral bankruptcy and their very own cupidity has hit a hyper-drive. To help calm the waters, the government has found the source of the unexplained phenomenon and have discovered Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), a survivor of the original disaster, may have a deep personal connection to the events in question. He accepts a mission, then hops on a commercial flight to Mars, even buying a pillow and blanket pack for $125 for the long trip. He hopes to find answers, not only to save humankind but to questions that have haunted him since childhood and affected his outlook on life in the process.

Ad Astra is part of a small Latin phrase, “ Per Aspera ad Astra, ” which means, “Through hardships to the stars .” The script by Gray and Ethan Gross ( Fringe ) has much to say about the relationships that define who we are and how we handle the adversities thrown at us. Their film feeds a cinephile’s craving to seek out something real because of what they know about the harsh realities of honesty and truth: we are often less open with ourselves, the ones we love the most, and more candid to complete strangers. This culminates in an effort of an entire film that’s a metaphor for mental health and acceptance; it’s all a gigantic void you find yourself in when lost in a deep cycle of depression. There are multiple scenes here that have underlying meanings and foreshadowings that confirms the process of tumbling down the rabbit-hole, climbing yourself out, and into the healing process.

Then there is the matter of Brad Pitt, who continues to take smart risks that pay off handsomely. Not only has he had one of the best turns of the year in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , he quite possibly tops it here within a few short months. His performance here is a cerebral and thought-provoking one that also combines a deep, brooding obsessiveness that is much akin to Gene Hackman in The French Connection . He may be, and right now I would place my money on a near-lock, he will be the first person to receive two acting nominations in the same year since Cate Blanchette in 2007 for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I’m Not There (please note that you can’t be nominated more than once in the same category; so, Cliff Booth will be regulated to the supporting category).

While I wouldn’t say director James Gray redefines the blockbuster for millennials and Brooklyn hipsters alike, he visually and narratively concedes that movies are for the people and an art form, then juggles those with surprisingly effective results. The novice film fan may hear the phrase “art-house” and automatically assume this film is not for the masses, but that would be wrong. The films open with, some might say, a killer action scene that is thrilling and equally nerve-racking. Gray and company don’t skimp here, giving the audience not the scraps but nice-sized bites of the premium mainstream fare that play well within the structure of the film without making you feel they are placating the suits for ticket sales. There was an honest-to-god jaw-dropping scene towards the middle of the film that was completely unexpected; the film has several scenes like this that never change the film conceptually and (along with Max Richter’s moving musical score) only enhance what it’s trying to do with its hidden storytelling.

Yes, there are some plot holes here that come along with films like this. They tend to hide-out and are well-hidden when they wrap them up in a Snuggy of metaphorical bliss. You have to give into it to enjoy the trip, and almost everything in the film is so well done you are willing to forgive almost anything that happens before or after it.

Whatever side you land on with the film’s ending, enjoying the side of its downplayed, cerebral temperament or loathing the journey that landed you in a field of cynicism for filmmakers’ future endeavors, it’s a suspenseful, emotional, and rewarding trip that’s an equivalent of cinematic therapy miles; Ad Astra is a stealthy, beautiful, evocative take on mental health.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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Pitt flies high to reach emotional depths in sci-fi drama.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 13+?

A wild animal fatally attacks a human; it happens off-screen, but viewers see th

Infrequent strong language, including "s--t," "son of a bitch," "what the hell"

Brands are shown in an unflattering way in conjunction with a commercial space t

Flashbacks reference a failed romantic relationship.

Astronauts take a prescription pill mandated by the government for space travel.

Any Positive Content?

Part of life's purpose is finding human connection. Strength comes from vulnerab

Roy is a measured man who exerts self-control, demonstrates courage, and maintai

Team of scientists, technicians, astronauts, and high-ranking aerospace brass is

Violence & Scariness

A wild animal fatally attacks a human; it happens off-screen, but viewers see the gory remains. Several deaths as a result of guns, explosions in a war zone, pressurized head explosions (quick but intense/disturbing), a stabbing, an implied suicide. People fall to their death from a high platform during a natural disaster.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent strong language, including "s--t," "son of a bitch," "what the hell" and "goddamn," plus a use of "f--king" (paired with "sucks"). Someone flips the bird in jest. "Jesus Christ" as an exclamation.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Brands are shown in an unflattering way in conjunction with a commercial space trip to the moon (on Virgin Atlantic) with terminals that reflect airport terminals (Subway, DHL, Applebees are among logos seen).

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Part of life's purpose is finding human connection. Strength comes from vulnerability. Prayer and God's presence in the universe are portrayed positively.

Positive Role Models

Roy is a measured man who exerts self-control, demonstrates courage, and maintains calm under intense pressure (though not all of his decisions yield ideal results).

Diverse Representations

Team of scientists, technicians, astronauts, and high-ranking aerospace brass is diverse in terms of age, gender, race. But their roles are minor, as the film devotes its runtime to following Roy and his search for his lost father, both White men.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Ad Astra is a stunning, thoughtful sci-fi drama starring Brad Pitt . The title is Latin for "through hardships to the stars," and while the film has all the trappings of a great space adventure, space travel is just the setting. This is really the emotional odyssey of a man who's trying to make peace with his conflicted feelings about his father ( Tommy Lee Jones ) -- and therefore it's not especially likely to entertain most teens. Still, Pitt's character, Major Roy McBride, is an admirable man -- courageous, calm, and thoughtful -- who's living in a future where it appears that race, gender, and age have equal professional footing. Sci-fi action includes guns, moon battles with explosions, solar flares, and other things that might go wrong in space, including a jarring animal attack that isn't shown but has gruesome results (which are shown). Characters die, including via a brief but intense/disturbing head explosion due to pressure issues. Much of the sound is muted through the quiet of a spacesuit, so this may be a good choice for those with audio sensitivities. Faith-focused families will appreciate elements such as prayer and positive acknowledgements of God's presence in the universe. Strong language is used sparingly but includes "hell" and "goddamn" and a possible use of "f--king." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (20)
Kids say (27)

Based on 20 parent reviews

Don't bother

What's the story.

After his father ( Tommy Lee Jones ) goes missing on an expedition to search for alien life near Neptune, aeronautics engineer Roy McBride ( Brad Pitt ) goes on a mission to find him in AD ASTRA. Donald Sutherland , Ruth Negga , and John Ortiz co-star.

Is It Any Good?

"Daddy issues" in all their forms may be humanity's greatest common experience, and so writer-director James Gray's space drama will be relatable to many. Decades after his legendary father is presumed dead during a space exploration, Roy has come to realize that he's created a life that echoes his dad's -- perhaps as a connection, but also as an escape. Gray smartly uses the self-contained existence inside a spacesuit to represent the emotional barrier that Roy has created to prevent true human connection.

While the slow pacing may not be for everyone, each shot is perfectly arranged, and the cinematography and visual effects are stunning. It's almost impossible to believe you're not truly passing by Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. And get ready to see a different Brad Pitt. There's no sandwich eating or coffee slurping here -- in fact, one scene has Pitt hooking up to a feeding tube in space, almost as proof that he can act without his hallmark crutch. Portraying a calm, cool, collected character could be a challenge, but Pitt's eyes express everything; when the stoic major allows himself to express the smallest amount of emotion, it's the audience who cries.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how Roy demonstrates self-control in Ad Astra . Why is that a positive character strength ? Roy's self-control seems to have arrived at the cost of bottled-up emotions. Is there a healthy way to express yourself while retaining control?

What's the importance of human connection? Why is social connectedness different from person-to-person relationships? Do you think someone might choose loneliness?

What's your takeaway from the film? It's a transformative journey -- does that kind of story need to have a message? Do you think you'll notice and learn the lessons life teaches you?

What do you think about the film's prediction about the future of the moon as a tourist destination and war zone? What do you think the future of space travel will look like?

Author Arthur C. Clarke famously said, "Either we're not alone in the universe, or we are, and both are equally terrifying." What do you think?

Movie Details

In theaters : September 20, 2019
On DVD or streaming : December 17, 2019
Cast : Brad Pitt , Tommy Lee Jones , Ruth Negga
Director : James Gray
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Multiracial actors
Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
Genre : Science Fiction
Topics : Space and Aliens
Character Strengths : Courage , Self-control
Run time : 122 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : some violence and bloody images, and for brief strong language
Last updated : July 1, 2024

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Review: Brad Pitt sets out to save the world in ‘Ad Astra,’ a space odyssey that stumbles and soars

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Somber, stirring, ridiculous and just shy of sublime, James Gray’s speculative fiction “Ad Astra” opens with a vision of a man falling to Earth. He’s an astronaut named Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), and he’s perched on an International Space Antenna — basically a very, very high-altitude ladder, with the world spreading out like a vast blue-green carpet beneath him. It’s an impossibly serene and beautiful moment that is disrupted by a series of sudden explosions, as shock waves surge through the antenna and send Roy tumbling toward what looks like near-certain doom.

Miraculously, he survives the fall, thanks to a parachute and a gift for staying calm in even the riskiest situations. In this he resembles his father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), a legendary space explorer who vanished decades ago on Neptune. Now top government officials are whispering that Clifford is alive, if not exactly well: Those electrical storms, which are wreaking havoc worldwide, appear to have originated on Neptune, and it’s likely that Clifford is behind it all, exacting a strange kind of revenge on Earth and potentially the entire solar system.

It’s richly ironic that Roy may have been placed in a life-or-death situation by the same father who gave him the skills necessary to survive it. As Roy tells us, in thick streams of voice-over that suggest a Zen philosopher by way of a film-noir private eye, it is Clifford to whom he owes his strong work ethic and his love for space travel. He’s too much in denial to point out that Clifford is also the reason he’s so emotionally distanced from the rest of humankind, as embodied by a briefly seen and even more briefly heard ex-wife (Liv Tyler, in a thankless role).

The degree to which our parents shape us, for better and inevitably for worse, is at the heart of “Ad Astra.” Written by Gray and Ethan Gross, this is a moody, mournful story of fathers and sons that, like a lot of ambitious Hollywood science fiction, strikes a balance between a harrowing otherworldly trek and a more interior psychological journey.

Roy’s superiors believe that hearing from a long-lost son might be enough to sway Clifford’s conscience. And so, with some early help from Col. Pruitt (Donald Sutherland), an old colleague of his dad’s, Roy sets out to transmit a message to Neptune, a top-secret mission that will take him to the moon, Mars and beyond. As “Ad Astra” follows Roy toward the outer reaches of the solar system, tracing a path that superficially recalls the arc of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” it becomes increasingly elastic in its play with genre, shape-shifting into an action movie, a paranoid thriller and, finally, an earnest hybrid of cosmic parable and male weepie.

Gray’s command of these tonal and narrative shifts is evidence of a sensibility steeped in classical cinematic entertainments, and grounded in the belief that even a meditative, quasi-Tarkovskian space opera should deliver a good jolt every now and then. There are a few decent ones here, starting with a lunar action sequence that kicks up a lot of moon dust and suspicion, and one grisly shock that nods ever so quickly in the direction of “Alien” and its creature-feature ilk.

Still, it is hard not to wish that these visceral scares were more sustained and purposeful, and that they were tethered to a more coherent and rigorous vision of the future. This is less a matter of scientific accuracy — though I eagerly await Neil deGrasse Tyson’s debunking of the asteroid-surfing scene — than of imaginative detail.

One of the pleasures of Gray’s more earthbound earlier features is the sense that a highly specific milieu — from the Russian mob enclaves of “Little Odessa” and “We Own the Night” to the South American jungles of “The Lost City of Z” — has taken shape in the background. The fictionalized world of “Ad Astra,” by contrast, emerges in bits and pieces, never feeling fully formed or taking on an imaginative life of its own.

Kevin Thompson’s production design affords us striking glimpses of an alternate future reality, at times tipping the movie in the direction of satire. The moon has become a crudely commercialized dystopia surrounded by a desolate, pirate-ridden wasteland, while what we see of Mars is an underground military base equipped with brightly colored, mood-altering rooms. You wonder how these visions came to be, and Gray’s patient, contemplative approach encourages that wonder. But the conceptual underpinnings are never satisfactorily addressed, reduced instead to bits of shorthand in Roy’s clunky, long-winded voice-over.

But if the world building in “Ad Astra” leaves something to be desired — as does Ruth Negga’s underdeveloped role as a potential ally of Roy’s — it may be because the director’s investment here is more emotional than intellectual. Where the picture really comes together is in the final stretch, in which Gray allows the sad grandiosity of his vision to flourish without apology (a development echoed by Max Richter’s lovely score, which shifts from “Tron”-like electronica to more classically moving strings).

There is something both absurd and heartbreaking about the idea of a man saving the universe by traveling billions of miles to be reunited with the father who abandoned him..

There is something both absurd and heartbreaking about the idea of a man saving the universe by traveling billions of miles to be reunited with the father who abandoned him and his mother three decades ago, and it is more to this movie’s credit than its detriment that it proves willing to risk our ridicule. This is hardly the first time, of course, that Hollywood has used the outer-space thriller as a smokescreen for the exploration of deep-seated daddy issues, most recently Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar.”

That picture, like this one, was shot by the brilliant cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, and it, too, was predicated on a grave apocalyptic threat. But Nolan’s movie notably flirted with the possible existence of benevolent entities, beaming a message of hope and salvation across time and space to our lowly and inglorious species. No such entities are assumed to exist in “Ad Astra,” which posits, with more pessimism than reassurance, a universe in which no higher consciousness exists and humankind is well and truly alone.

Roy’s father made it his life’s work to find other intelligent life forms, and Jones’ sad, unsettling performance, much of it transmitted through old video footage recorded before Clifford went missing, shows us a man in the grip of a dangerous and ultimately futile obsession. And Pitt’s increasingly moist-eyed turn, stiff and sensitive by turns, is a fascinating study in alienation; he makes clear the degree to which Roy has both idealized and internalized his father’s neglect, turning “Ad Astra” into a psychodrama of impacted masculinity and paternal conflict.

Some may well see echoes of “Apocalypse Now,” with Roy playing the Capt. Willard to Clifford’s Col. Kurtz. Others may be reminded of “The Lost City of Z,” a more richly realized story of a father and son exploring an uncharted frontier, and also a more complex and empathetic portrait of a woman’s emotional abandonment. I couldn’t help but divine (so to speak) a religious dimension to this otherwise secular parable: Starting with that initial tumble from the heavens, Roy might well be a Christ figure interceding on behalf of a fallen species, desperately trying to write a new testament in which the Earth and its citizens survive.

A movie that can support that particular reading is nothing to scoff at. And at a time when blockbusters for thinking adults are themselves on the verge of extinction, it is hard not to appreciate the unusual rhythms and nuances Gray brings to this story, or his consistent skill at finding his own time-honored themes in the material. But it is also hard not to think he found those themes a bit too easily, imposing a tidy dramatic order on a subject that resists easy colonization or classification. You leave “Ad Astra” feeling dazzled and befuddled, moved and frustrated, and perhaps wishing that its maker had cast his own preoccupations aside and taken a deeper, headier plunge into the void.

Rated: PG-13, for some violence and bloody images, and for brief strong language Running time: 2 hours, 4 minutes Playing: Opens Sept. 20 in general release

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James Gray’s space odyssey marries heart and spectacle – and a fine Brad Pitt performance – in a memorable journey to the stars.

Time Out says

If you like your space odysseys brimming with formula-filled blackboards and quantum mechanics, consider this a trigger warning: ‘Ad Astra’ is not that kind of sci-fi. Unlike ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ or ‘Interstellar’, two obvious points of parallel, there’s no Arthur C Clarke or Kip Thorne behind the scenes to bring Nobel-worthy science to the fiction. This is a movie where a man travels to Neptune, a distance of 2.7 billion miles, without ageing a day – a reach even when that man is Brad Pitt. It features killer baboons in zero gravity. At one point, Pitt jacks a spaceship – while it’s taking off. On paper, at least, it’s ‘Moonraker’ with a PhD.

Leave any disbelief at the door, though, and you’ll be rewarded with an often gorgeous, soulful sci-fi that’s charged with emotion and bursting with spectacle. It has meaningful things to say about letting go, dads and their sons, and the challenges of reconciling with the past. Sure, it’s set in ‘the near future’ and mostly against the endless solitude of space – captured by ‘Interstellar’ cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema with lunar greys and Martian ochres – and it boasts possibly cinema’s first moon-buggy chase (as awesome as it sounds), but director James Gray and his co-writer Ethan Gross never lose sight of its intimate heart. They’re aided in that by a terrific, nuanced performance from Pitt.

For the most part, ‘Ad Astra’ wears its near-future-ness with a light touch. Exactly what’s happening on Earth is kept deliberately murky, beyond it being a time of ‘hope and conflict’ where the ratio seems to skew heavily towards the latter. Short-haul space travel has been commercialised, while the mineral-rich moon is a battleground of vying national interests and plagued by space pirates. Mars is a springboard for the outer reaches of the solar system, though via the US military, not Nasa. That detail feels not insignificant in this troubled new world.

Negotiating this politicised solar system is Brad Pitt’s veteran astronaut, Major Roy McBride. He’s tasked with finding the father – legendary spaceman Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) – he’d long presumed dead. Not only is he very much alive, but he’s also gone rogue on a scientific mission near Neptune and has a seismic weapon at his disposal. Roy hasn't seen his old man for 16 years but doesn't seem particularly surprised to discover he’s gone the full Colonel Kurtz on the edge of space – or that he’s the likely source of radioactive bursts that threaten humanity’s survival. The stage is set for the ultimate father-son pep talk.

If ‘Ad Astra’ doesn’t have much time for the mechanics of space travel, it has an acute interest in the business of being an astronaut. McBride Jr’s pulse, we learn, never goes above 80. He’s subjected to regular Voight-Kampf-like tests to make sure his emotions are kept equally in check. He’s obliged to take mood stabilisers to help him ‘compartmentalise’, and cope with his time in space. In short, he’s a man with the mute button on. Unsurprisingly, his wife (Liv Tyler, under-employed) is out the door in the opening scene.

Pitt does a great job of smuggling a sense of boyish hurt under that carapace of coolness. The scars left by his father’s absence are more vivid than he realises and the final third of the movie is all the more moving for it. His brief scenes with Ruth Negga’s functionary on Mars, another victim of his dad’s scientific zealotry, carry real emotional charge. Production designer Kevin Thompson backdrops them with sets that are so Kubrickian, you wonder if they’ve wandered into an unexplored corner of ‘2001’. Less successful is Pitt’s voiceover, which fills some of the blanks during the solo elements of his mission but is monotone and subdued. Max Richter and Lorne Balfe ’s lovely, understated score fills the vast canvas much more effectively.

As with his equally ambitious ‘The Lost City of Z’, Gray looks for opportunities to let his story breathe – both films carry the stamp of Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ (and, of course, ‘Apocalypse Now’) in their man-on-a-thankless-mission philosophising – but he throws in sudden jolts of adrenaline to switch up the tempo. Space debris cascades, lethal lasers zip soundlessly through space and there’s a bit where things turn a little Silver Surfer in an asteroid field. It’s often thrilling, occasionally improbable, sometimes confounding, but like its director, ‘Ad Astra’ is never bound by the gravitational pull of the ordinary. Strap in.

Release Details

Release date: Wednesday 18 September 2019
Duration: 123 mins

Cast and crew

Director: James Gray
Screenwriter: James Gray, Ethan Gross
Tommy Lee Jones
Donald Sutherland

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Ad Astra is about lonely Brad Pitt in space. It’s also about an absent God.

Slow, gorgeous, and unnerving, the movie gives a distinctly modern answer to man’s search for the divine.

by Alissa Wilkinson

Brad Pitt wearing a spacesuit and peering out of his spacecraft in the movie “Ad Astra.”

Midway through Ad Astra , the crew of a spacecraft blesses one of their number with the words, “May you meet your Redeemer face to face and enjoy the vision of God forever.” And I sat up straighter. Prior to that scene, I wasn’t sure what kind of a movie this was, other than a story about Brad Pitt as a preternaturally calm and emotionally closed-off astronaut in the near future.

This prayer, and some other key hints dropped throughout the film, put a frame around that image. Yes, Ad Astra is a movie about space travel, about a man played by Brad Pitt who is searching for his father in the furthest reaches of the solar system. But it’s also a movie about God.

Or, more specifically, God’s silence.

That’s not an unusual subject for science fiction to tackle; even when it isn’t specifically about an entity called God, sci-fi often deals with the idea of transcendence, of feeling dwarfed by a world that extends far beyond our naked eyes. Nor is it untrodden territory for prestige cinema; in just the last few years, both Martin Scorsese’s Silence and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed have told stories about a God who goes silent.

But Ad Astra may be unique in its metaphorical approach, in how it answers the questions it raises, and in what it’s doing with those answers.

Ad Astra is about a man looking for his father, and a lot more

Director James Gray’s last film, the 2017 epic The Lost City of Z , was also about an explorer and his son. The way I described that explorer in my review works, almost verbatim, as a description of Ad Astra ’s Cliff McBride (Tommy Lee Jones): He “feels earthbound by his ancestors but longs for something greater, some experience that defies definition, to discover something beyond what his own civilization has managed to produce ... He craves the experience of transcendence: to move beyond his world and see it as a bigger place, without the strictures placed on him by the culture and religion he was raised in.”

In The Lost City of Z , the adventurer is Victorian and the film’s protagonist. In Ad Astra , he’s an astronaut in the near future; as the film’s title cards explain, man’s ruthless consumption of Earth’s resources has forced him to look elsewhere for the species’ future.

He’s also only a supporting character. Ad Astra focuses instead on his son, Roy McBride (Pitt), who has followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming an astronaut and a major in the space division of the US military. (No, it is not called the “ Space Force .”) Roy is stoic and unemotional to a fault, with a heart rate that rarely rises above 80 and an ex-wife named Eve (Liv Tyler) whom he drove away with his inability to be “present” with her, even when they were in the same room.

An astronaut in a spacesuit climbs the International Space Antenna in “Ad Astra.”

Roy is devoted to his job, which currently involves working on the International Space Antenna, a giant structure that extends from the Earth’s surface through the atmosphere and into space. But that isn’t why he’s so phlegmatic. We get the distinct impression he’s closed himself off to the world and possibly depressed. He narrates his life to himself — we’re privy to his thoughts but nobody else is — and yet rarely says anything unnecessary out loud. He’s on track to spend the rest of his days as a dependable, decorated public servant.

But then mysterious electric pulses start to rock the Earth, wreaking havoc on equipment and life on Earth as well as at outposts on the moon and Mars. Roy gets a call from his superiors. They have reason to suspect that the source of the pulses, which seem to be coming from deep space, may be Cliff, Roy’s father, who never returned from a mission into deep space years earlier. Cliff was searching for extraterrestrial intelligence; he left when Roy was 16 and then disappeared entirely from communication with Earth when Roy was 29, well over a decade ago.

The military now believes that Cliff is alive and triggering the pulses from somewhere near Neptune. They think Roy might be able to establish contact with him. So they tell Roy they want to send him to the US outpost on Mars to try to make contact. Roy, with unreadable affect, agrees to go and boards a commercial flight for the moon, the first leg of his trip.

Ad Astra gives a distinctly modern answer to man’s search for God

Brad Pitt is having an excellent year, between his role as an enigmatic stuntman in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and now Ad Astra . He carries nearly the whole film on his shoulders. Most other characters are short-lived on-screen figures; in space, you’re mostly alone, especially if you prefer to be left that way. It’s a strong turn for Pitt, one where he can’t lean on his considerable comedic chops. Ad Astra is a wonderful film, but it sure is deadly serious — and Pitt is playing a man whose apparent depression renders him almost devoid of emotion for long stretches. With a set jaw and creased eyes, he draws us into his inner world.

But the most remarkable thing about Ad Astra is that it exists at all, or maybe just that James Gray (who in addition to directing the film, co-wrote its screenplay with Fringe writer Ethan Gross) managed to raise enough money to make it. It is beautiful, giving space a feeling of tangibility, but it is not for everyone. It’s slow and very little happens, despite a thrilling chase scene involving space pirates . And even though there’s a little bit of world-building — we spot a Hudson News and an Applebee’s on the moon while Roy bemoans the fact that humans went to space and just replicated the stuff they have on Earth — it’s not a movie about futuristic society.

Instead, Ad Astra follows the grand tradition of many other science fiction films in interrogating the nature of what it means to be human. And that happens two ways.

Brad Pitt sits onstage in front of a microphone in the movie “Ad Astra.”

On one rather literal level, Ad Astra is about an absent father whose absence profoundly impacted son and about how love is what makes us human and keeps us that way. It’s the story of a son driven to search for his missing father and what he learns from that quest. In this regard, it’s a worthy follow-up to The Lost City of Z , which was partly about the fraught relationship between a parent whose passions led him away from home for years at a time and the child who grappled with his legacy and then joined him.

But Ad Astra gets bigger and more significant when you think about it as a movie about God, or rather about the way we feel about God in modernity. I don’t know if Gray meant it this way — and as an always-faltering but still-practicing Christian, I hope his vision of the future isn’t accurate — but what he’s made is a movie about the feeling of God’s absence.

To explain, I’ll need to talk more about what happens in the film. But if you don’t want to read on, know that Ad Astra is beautiful, contemplative, and loaded with meaning — not an action movie, but one that leaves you with plenty to ponder.

(Spoilers follow.)

Image reads “spoilers below,” with a triangular sign bearing an exclamation point.

Cliff, Roy’s father, doesn’t actually show up in Ad Astra until near the end, and even then it’s a little hard to tell whether he’s real. (For most of his scenes, I thought Roy might be hallucinating him and I’m still not totally sure he’s not.)

But his presence hovers over the whole movie. He’s an absent yet omnipresent specter, sending what seems to be judgement (in the form of electrical pulses) down onto humanity for reasons the humans can’t quite figure out. Desperate for a solution, they send his son (his only son, I might point out; if that doesn’t make him a Christ figure, it sure comes close) as their intermediary, a person who might talk to God — er, I mean Cliff — on their behalf .

This reading of Ad Astra might seem like the kind of stretch a pastor makes in a sermon except that a Christian conception of God is very consciously invoked in the film beginning early on. The pilots of one spacecraft are heard asking for St. Christopher’s protection (Christopher being the patron saint of journeys) as a rocket launches. Roy watches old footage of his father aboard the mission on which he disappeared, saying that in space he feels closer to God, feels his presence as he never did on Earth. There’s the aforementioned prayer offered by the crew on behalf of a dead colleague and also the general sense of awe that pervades the film.

There’s no one-to-one correlation here; you can’t map the story of Ad Astra directly onto man’s search for God or some part of the New Testament. But the parallels are striking. And they become particularly notable when Roy finally finds his father out near Neptune, then realizes that his father has disconnected himself from humanity to the degree that he has no interest in coming home. Cliff is doing Roy a service, in a sense, when he tells his son to “let go” of him, to push him away. Roy then lets go of his conception of his father as much as he lets go of his actual father — and what’s left for him is an overwhelming sense that the only things that make life worth living are not “out there” somewhere, way out by Neptune or in heaven, but down on Earth, where people are.

Twice, that idea is visually reinforced on screen. Briefly, Roy and Cliff grapple in space, arms locked, Cliff trying to get away and Roy trying to hang on. The resulting image is a version of the hand that God reaches out toward man (at least in Michelangelo’s rendering on the Sistine Chapel ceiling ), now desperate, man clinging to God for dear life, before finally letting go. Then a variation arrives near the film’s end: Roy lands on Earth and the first thing he sees when the door to his ship opens is a hand outstretched from above — the hand not of God or of his legendary father but of an ordinary man.

So there’s a sense in which Ad Astra is a movie about immanence winning out over transcendence: the notion that if God or something like it really did exist, it’s been gone for so long that all we have to keep us human, to actually make life worth living, is not our search for God but our love for one another down on Earth. Meaning is here; it’s not out there. We need to let go of our conceptions of some other being.

Of course, that’s not what Christianity or any number of other religious traditions teach. But it is a persuasive appeal worth pondering in our age, when most anything wondrous can be explained by science and where some people who spend their lives searching for God do so by neglecting the very real needs of their fellow man.

A man in a spacesuit looks across a barren plain toward a rocket on a launch pad in the movie “Ad Astra.”

This is why I think the “absence of God” motif in Ad Astra is valuable no matter your belief system. If we’re receptive, it leaves us pondering the fact that an encounter with a universe that’s much bigger than ourselves — either in the solar system or in the heavens — can force us into an encounter with, well, ourselves. It’s our human foibles and failures that we encounter in solitude, our inability to love one another, and the possibility of letting our “search for God” overtake that love is chilling. Any God who doesn’t want us to love one another is not a God worth having.

Ad Astra is a poetic, almost symphonic testament to this idea, and a stunning one. In the credits, Gray thanks Tracy K. Smith, the former poet laureate who won the Pulitzer for her 2011 collection Life on Mars, an elegy to her father, who worked on the Hubble telescope and died in 2008.

One of the poems in the book is titled “ My God, It’s Full of Stars ” ( Ad Astra takes it title from the Latin phrase for “to the stars”). In it, Smith invokes a variety of myths and stories, from the legend of the lost city of Atlantis to 2001: A Space Odyssey . It concludes with the perfect description of how history, humanity, and space interact in an ultimate search for meaning:

My father spent whole seasons Bowing before the oracle-eye, hungry for what it would find. His face lit-up whenever anyone asked, and his arms would rise As if he were weightless, perfectly at ease in the never-ending Night of space. On the ground, we tied postcards to balloons For peace. Prince Charles married Lady Di. Rock Hudson died. We learned new words for things. The decade changed. The first few pictures came back blurred, and I felt ashamed For all the cheerful engineers, my father and his tribe. The second time, The optics jibed. We saw to the edge of all there is— So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.

Ad Astra opens in theaters on September 20.

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Ad Astra Ending Explained: What Happened And What It Means

Ad Astra Brad Pitt looking into the darkness of space

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Warning: spoilers for Ad Astra are in play. If you haven’t seen the film yet, return to Earth, and blast off once you’ve caught the film for yourself.

By the time Ad Astra’s ending sees Brad Pitt completing a mission that takes him to the depths of known space, an audience member wouldn’t be faulted for being confused about what just happened . What seems to start as a routine “mission into space” turns into a journey of emotional catharsis, with some punctuated moments of action.

So naturally, when you get to those last moments that see Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride reevaluating life in light of learning the true legacy of his father, Clifford ( Tommy Lee Jones ), it might feel a bit blindsiding. Have no fear though, as we’re here to discuss not only what happened at the end of director James Gray’s Ad Astra , but also what it means in the entire structure of the larger story at work.

What Happened At The End Of Ad Astra

Father and son clash on the outskirts of Neptune, as Roy, disobeying orders from his superiors at U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM), travels out to try and bring his father home. The only problem is, Clifford doesn’t want to return, as he readily admits he left his family and Earth for his “destiny”: to find intelligent life, no matter the cost.

Far beyond his original task of merely playing the role of bait to draw his father out of exile, Ad Astra’s mission to save the Earth from the supposedly mutinous Clifford turns out to be a big misunderstanding. The Surge that threatens Earth, and life in all of the universe, was a colossal accident, not some sort of villainous plot on the elder McBride’s part.

A scuffle between Roy and Clifford results in the son having to let go of the father, as Clifford would rather float into the vastness of space than live with the knowledge that there’s no intelligent life in the stars. Retrieving the vast treasure trove of data his father gathered for The Lima Project, the mission to find extra-terrestrial life out among the stars, Roy returns to Earth a changed man. He is able to reconnect with humanity in a way we haven’t seen before, with his marriage to estranged wife Eve ( Liv Tyler ) possibly being mended.

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Ad Astra Brad Pitt walking down the hall in uniform

Where Ad Astra’s Conflict Really Comes From

Despite the conflict in Ad Astra being originally set up as simply hunting down a madman on the edge of space, the greatest threats and agents of change in Roy’s journey are the things he notices on his journey. The journey, not the destination, is where the beating heart of this movie lies, as the burden of expectations is the true villain of this narrative.

Throughout his life, Roy McBride is trying to live up to the shadow of his father’s work with The Lima Project. He shuns personal connections, and anything that feels like a normal life, to keep his eyes on his personal mission to the stars. To him, space travel is still one of the great equalizers, and the quest to find higher meaning in the universe is a siren’s call to him, as it was to Clifford.

However, we slowly see his Ad Astra worldview break down with each step in his journey. Roy slowly learns that humanity’s obsession with space is no longer special. The Moon looks like a Newark Airport style tourist trap, with raiders fighting it out for resources. And with the knowledge that there is no extra-terrestrial life out there, Brad Pitt’s protagonist walks away with one key takeaway: “Now we know, we’re all we’ve got”.

Ad Astra’s conflict originally looks to be about Roy finding his father and stopping a horrific event from happening. But the real struggle is Roy learning the truth about Clifford’s legacy, humanity’s journey to space, and ultimately his decision to reconnect with humanity itself as a result.

Ad Astra Brad Pitt recording a message to his father

How Roy Reconnects With Humanity Through Ad Astra

Dedicated to the mission of the space program , Ad Astra introduces us to Brad Pitt’s Roy as a person who prefers solitude. He enjoys working on the International Space Antenna, and pretends as much as he can to enjoy other people’s company. So when SPACECOM asks him to go on a mission to establish contact with his long lost father, Roy jumps at the chance.

His obsession breaks apart gradually, as we previously discussed, and ultimately Roy chooses to reconnect with his humanity at the end of Ad Astra . Roy makes this choice because of two big developments, the first of which is his disillusion with the world of space travel.

But in another sort of twist in Ad Astra’s story, SPACECOM turns out to be less than trusting when it comes to Roy being able to potentially kill his father, and destroy the Lima Project outpost, in order to prevent another surge from wiping out all life. With the substitute father he devoted his life and time to turning functionally using him for their own means, and the truth about Clifford McBride’s own legacy being readily apparent, Roy chooses to recommit himself to life on Earth.

Ad Astra Brad Pitt sitting at a counter with coffee

How Roy’s Relationship With Humanity Defines Ad Astra

With the line, “I look forward to the day my solitude ends, and I am home.”, Roy shows how his space journey has changed him. By the end of Ad Astra , the first thing he’s greeted with upon landing on Earth is a hand reaching out to help him, and he gladly accepts. Knowing humanity only has itself to rely on, Roy McBride is now officially a member of the human race yet again.

Ad Astra , at its core, is about a man who, once he learns some hard truths about the system he idealizes, allows himself to become human again. The great question, “Are we alone in the universe?” is answered two fold. While there’s no intelligent life, we as a species have each other to keep us company in the great expanse.

The answers humanity seeks aren’t “out there”, they’re at home; because if we can’t deal with our problems on Earth, they’re just going to repeat themselves anywhere we go. Learning the truth about how much his father and SPACECOM truly value him as a person, Brad Pitt’s character is able to return home to Earth with a clear head, trying to make things right with his wife, and humanity at large.

Ad Astra is currently available for rent or buy through various retailers, but can also be seen on HBO Max as of Saturday, June 6. If you’re not a subscriber, and would like to watch/rewatch the film, you can check out the current 7-day free trial offer that’s available to get in on the action.

Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.

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Movie Review: Ad Astra (2019)

Dan Gunderman
Movie Reviews
--> October 28, 2019

Director James Gray, whose last film, “ The Lost City of Z ,” garnered serious praise upon release in 2016, has continued his win streak in the exploratory sci-fi film Ad Astra , the Latin phrase for “to the stars.” This Brad Pitt vehicle stands as a powerful character study within a plausible near-future universe, with a hefty yet sluggish plot that is more about mental health and existentialism than it is about rockets, gunfire and fisticuffs, sans gravity.

The well-cast Pitt (“ Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood ”) is subtle and restrained, yet capable and perfectly nuanced, matching the persona of jaded astronaut Roy McBride; his quest across the universe is truly for validation from his long-lost father, Lima Project commander H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones, “ The Homesman ”).

Where the Charlie Hunnam-led “The Lost City of Z” boasted exquisite frames, an ambitious concept and deep-seated internal conflict played out across sprawling vistas, the same model is applied to Ad Astra , with some of the year’s most impressive cinematography (thanks to Hoyte van Hoytema, “ Dunkirk ”) and journeys of the mind. Gray’s jaunt into science fiction certainly succeeds, but the plot could have worked on Earth — with the McBride reunion rivaling that of Percy (Hunnam) and Jack Fawcett (Tom Holland), his “The Lost City of Z” father-son duo.

Gray’s filmmaking tends to examine paternal relationships, often succeeding; his exotic settings only add more depth and aesthetic value. In Ad Astra , Gray puts the McBrides under the microscope — presenting what exploration (distant space travel, in this case) can do to humanity, often severing ties. He also happens to leave viewers with a bevy of memorable set pieces — from speedy moon rovers to space-dwelling animal test subjects and debris inside the rings of Neptune.

Gray’s quest from the moon (a trip McBride flies commercially), to an underground lake on Mars, to the endless straits toward Neptune, amount to a remarkably crafty and tonally pleasing film — one that leaves an indelible mark and offers a realistic look at the future of space travel.

More specifically, Ad Astra picks up just after McBride suffers a serious injury after falling from space — as U.S. Space Command (SpaceCom) equipment becomes affected by strong power surges. McBride is soon recruited for a top-secret mission to identify and root out the source of the surges. He is told that the emissions have been linked to energy readings near Neptune, where a manned mission — the Lima Project — ventured to the outer reaches of the solar system to chart signs of extraterrestrial life. The mission was led by space legend Clifford McBride (Jones), but SpaceCom lost contact 16-years prior.

SpaceCom relies on the younger McBride to track down the remnants of the Lima Project, which may or may not still be sustaining life. In order to do so, McBride must flee his pedestrian life on Earth, with his unhappy wife Eve (Liv Tyler, “ Wildling ”), catch a commercial flight to the moon, board the Cepheus for a flight to Mars and from there use voice messages to reach Clifford. Clifford’s former associate, Colonel Pruitt (“ The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 ”), informs the younger McBride that his father may have gone rogue, threatening the mission and thus life on all outposts of the solar system. McBride, a space lifer like his father, then sets course and pulls out all the stops to find his father, enlisting the help of Mars outpost leader Helen Lantos (Ruth Negga, “ Warcraft ”).

By the film’s final act, it is apparent that Gray does not bring Ad Astra anywhere near the realm of “space opera,” or high-concept genre film. While visually alluring, the film is more psychological and character driven than narratively pleasing, though taken in its entirety, it remains an ambitious and well-executed experiment in realistic science fiction. The film never demands its viewers to strenuously suspend their disbelief, nor does it feel aimless or poorly captured.

Its strong production values, including competent CGI, sweeping ethereal shots and expressive camerawork (namely the close-ups on Pitt) allow this film to stack up nicely against similar projects, like Christopher Nolan’s “ Interstellar ” or Steven Soderbergh’s “Solaris.” (It also boasts half the cast of “Space Cowboys”). Still, it is more than a sum of its parts. Ad Astra is a clever, celestial adventure that pits man against the universe and questions the spatial constraints of space travel. It also begs the question of whether mankind is capable of managing its expansion into space. There’s still no clear answer.

Tagged: astronaut , experiment , father , journey , mission , space

Dan is an author, film critic and media professional. He is a former staff writer for the N.Y. Daily News, where he served as a film/TV reviewer with a "Top Critic" designation on Rotten Tomatoes. His debut historical fiction novel, "Synod," was published by an independent press in Jan. 2018, receiving praise among indie book reviewers. His research interests include English, military and political history.

Movie Review: Six Minutes to Midnight (2020) Movie Review: Apocalypse ‘45 (2020) Movie Review: Greyhound (2020) Movie Review: Robert the Bruce (2019) Movie Review: 1917 (2019) Movie Review: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Movie Review: Downton Abbey (2019)

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What’s On: Speaking in Tongues (Ad Astra)

Speaking in Tongues

5 – 28 September 2024

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Nine lives weave together in ways known and unknown in Andrew Bovell’s piercing drama, Speaking in Tongues . Leon is married to Sonja, Jane is married to Pete. By chance, each spouse meets the other’s one night and wind up in motel rooms. Pete and Sonja resist the one-night stand; Leon and Jane do not. A lonely man, Neil, pines for the love of his life, Sarah, who moved on decades ago. A woman, Valerie, goes missing and her stiletto was last seen in Nick’s car. Love, marriage, infidelity and betrayal are all tackled in this tense, electrifying play about the relationships between lovers, strangers, and the infinite ways people are entangled.

Speaking in Tongues won Andrew Bovell the AWGIE award in 1996. This play has been seen throughout Australia as well as in Europe and the US. Andrew Bovell adapted Speaking in Tongues for the screen as Lantana (2001) which won many awards, including seven AFIs, and is currently available to watch on Amazon Prime.

For ticketing and further information, visit the Ad Astra website

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Ad Astra review: Brad Pitt delivers finest performance in moving sci-fi melodrama

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