George Clooney the actor. Yep! On board, no issues there. Welcome back after a mini movie hiatus. Problem is, George Clooney the director gets in the way of his big return. The Midnight Sky has all the makings of something special, and would have been so….in 1957. Today, it settles for satisfying which in 2020, is enough I guess.
On Earth, the apocalypse has happened. Everyone has gone underground and the only “habitable” place left is the North and South Pole. Augustine Lofthouse (Clooney, what a name!), who’s dying of kidney failure, chooses to remain at the north pole. Good thing to, because no one told the spaceship Aether and their crew (played by Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir, David Oyelowo, and Tiffany Boone), who have successfully discovered a habitable planet, to just stay put. Augustine sees that he’s the only person left to deliver this information, so he hopes to stay alive long enough to do so so the shuttle can hightail it to mankind’s new home.
There are 2 compelling stories going on in Midnight Sky to keep your attention: both survival stories, different terrains. The space one has more of the pressing, engaging questions: the crew is totally in the dark as to what’s going on, as all attempts to contact people fail one by one. US? Russia? Australia? Brazil? No one’s communicating, and for a long period of time. Anxious to come home, we see holographic memories of everyone’s families with more poignant eyes, as the doom of what’s going on is about to hit them soon. Which leads into their big question: what do they do? Do they try to preserve the species? Or do they go searching for loved ones? In between those pontifications you know, there are also things like pressurization complications and meteor showers to deal with, which threw a new wrinkle into ways space can be unforgiving. And on the ground is the George Clooney show, like if George Clooney’s Gravity character became Sandra Bullock’s. Struggling with a mind born to live in the stars but stuck on the ground, Clooney has to find some reasons to go on living and propel him forward, moving on from his past mistakes. Plus he’s got to navigate the desolate snowscape and arctic wolves under a time crunch to the planet’s doom to save the species.
Either one of those stories could have been a standalone movie. Let me rephrase: Midnight Sky should have picked one of the two stories instead of trying to stitch them together. With both stories there, neither one goes as deep as it needs to in order to get the audience emotionally involved: we get the bullet points version. My vote would be the space story: you could have had Earth’s demise be the big third act reveal and shroud the astronauts in mystery and dread, and really gone deep into the 5 astronauts on board so we knew them as characters, making all their decisions have much more impact when things go down in the third act. I’m 100% on board that ship even though Clooney needs to work on some of his shots. But even if you just did the Clooney story, that would have been ok as well. The 2 unnecessary flashbacks could have been expanded upon to help inform us of Augustine’s present, and given us some context as to his pain and his personal will to push forward despite all the obstacles. Plus, Clooney wrestling a pack of wolves, would give us The Martian crossed with The Grey. Instead with what we have, Midnight sky becomes a story of connections that uses a hilarious story choice in the third act that’s ridiculous and kinda undercuts the movie. You should be crying at the end instead of laughing at Midnight Sky, but hey, at least it was entertaining!
George Clooney’s The Loneliest Santa or Worlds Collide: The Story of the Aether would have been a better version of Midnight Sky than the one we got. But that’s ok, because there’s enough there to enjoy yourself. So sit back, and let bearded Clooney cook you dinner and chat with Felicity Jones during a meteor shower. With maybe a taste of Nicholas Sparks.