Adam Sandler’s ponderous Spaceman fails to achieve lift off
ADAM SANDLER continues his evolution from clown to weighty thespian in Spaceman (15A, 107 mins, ))***), but somewhat at the expense of the rest of us. The film is an endurance test for its audience no less than it is for his character, an introspective astronaut on a solo mission to Jupiter.
Sandler plays Jakub, whose voyage gives him ample time to reflect on the strains in his marriage to Lenka (Carey Mulligan). Not surprisingly, being 500 million kilometres apart isn’t helping, and then, to make matters worse for his fragile emotional state, he seems to start hallucinating, as an alien creature in the form of a huge furry spider (voiced by Paul Dano) joins him.
But is he really going nuts or is the creature real? If you’ve read Spaceman Of Bohemia, the 2017 sci-fi novel on which this ponderous film is based, you’ll know.
It has some virtues, and a fine cast (also featuring Isabella Rossellini), but I found it hard work, alleviated only by the spider’s unintentionally funny resemblance to the Sugar Puffs Honey Monster.
THE VETERAN auteur Wim Wenders has made a very different film about a loner. Perfect Days (PG, 123 mins, )))**) chronicles the life of calm, cultured Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), whose job is to clean Tokyo’s public toilets. But these are not just any old WCs: they are part of the (real-life) Tokyo Toilet Project, a reinvention of the loo as an art installation.
However, this is a story not about toilets, but Hirayama’s prosaic yet mostly contented existence. Profound and sweet, it reminded me a little of Jim Jarmusch’s charming Paterson (2016).
I QUITE liked Shoshana (15A, 121 mins, )))**), Michael Winterbottom’s timely period drama set in 1930s Palestine, about actual people and events.
The British are colonial peacekeepers, trying to suppress both Arabs and Jews as they scrap over land. Meanwhile, our titular heroine (played by Russian actress Irina Starshenbaum), a member of the Jewish underground militia Haganah, is in love with Tom Wilkin (Douglas Booth) of the British Palestine Police Force.
There is a little too much exposition, with characters explaining to each other (but really, us) who’s who and what is what. But it’s an engaging story, splendidly acted, which sheds light on Britain’s none-too noble role in the origins of the current turmoil in Israel and Gaza.
■ Spaceman is in select cinemas from today, Netflix from March 1. Shoshana and Perfect Days are in cinemas now.