Jakub Prochazka (Adam Sandler) is halfway through a one year solo mission to explore an anomaly near Jupiter that has turned the night sky purple. However the only thing keeping him sane is slipping away as his wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) decides to leave him as he has left her. As Jakub’s ground support try to hide Lenka’s decision from him he turns to a stowaway on his ship, an alien that appears to be a giant spider that Jakub names Hanus (Paul Dano). 

Based on a novel by Jaroslav Kalfar, Spaceman explores Jakub’s relationship with his country, his father and his wife. As a young boy Jakub faced the ignominy of his father being exposed as a Communist informer. Driven by this he decided that he should pay his debt to his country through service and this mission has given him the opportunity to put his country in the global eye. But all of this is to the detriment of his relationship with his wife. 

When his wife delivers the video message to ground control that she is leaving him they withhold it. Whilst Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini) seeks out Lenka to ask her to reconsider her decision, Peter (Kunal Nayyar) tries to keep him calm and explain away the fact his wife is unable to talk to him. As the stress becomes too much Jakub starts to see a giant spider on board with him. Slowly Jakub opens up to the spider whom he names Hanus and they become friends. Hanus is able to slowly make Jakub explore his feelings and memories to tune in to what it was that brought him here and how he truly feels about Lenka. 

Spaceman is an intriguing film that reminds you of many others but manages to maintain its own identity. The likes of Interstellar, Solaris, Ad Astra and 2001: A Space Odyssey all came to mind. The exploration to an unknown anomaly, the father-son issues and themes of love are not original but the execution is unique. 

The film is shot in a way that places your mind in the same discombobulated state as Jakub. The camera is constantly in a state of slow rotation or movement as though it is floating in zero gravity inside the ship and often its movement is in the opposite direction of our protagonist. The whole effect gave me a sense of being slightly off balance. Add to this the fact that there is a giant talking spider and any arachnophobes are going to find watching this film an ordeal. But it is worth it. Sandler and Dano both give nuanced and compelling performances of a man losing his identity and an alien helping him find it. Of course if you want to believe that Hanus may just be a part of Jakub’s psyche then that is a perfectly acceptable possibility. 

The message that I took from this low key science fiction film is that when we see and experience something everyday we forget the miraculous nature of it. So sit back and let Jakub and Hanus friendship remind you to appreciate what you have and how it makes you feel.