10s Movie Review - High Life

Director: Claire Denis
Genre: Drama/ Horror/ Science Fiction
Runtime: 113 minutes
Year: 2018
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth, Andre 3000, Agata Buzek, Lars Eidinger, Claire Tran, Ewan Mitchell, Gloria Obianyo
 
Description: A father (Robert Pattinson) and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation.

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2024 MOVIE CHALLENGE
WEEK 28: A FILM FROM THE 2010S
 
Review: Claire Denis’ science fiction film “High Life” is as exciting as a space journey to the nearest black hole. In other words, it sounds more exciting than it actually is and it takes a long time.

Monte and his baby daughter Willows traverse the universe alone. It’s just the two of them. But it hasn’t always been that way. He had fellow passengers and in flashbacks we learn what happened to them and how Willow ended up on the space craft.

Monte was part of a group of criminals who were given the choice between a death sentence and a space experiment. Their mission was to try harness the rotational energy of the nearest black hole for human use. And al sorts of weird experiments are happening on the space ship.

I don’t even know where to begin. The film feels very experimental and not in a good way. It’s weird, in a gross kind of way. And I was so bored. From the synopsis, you expect something completely different. I didn’t connect with any of the characters, either they don’t get fleshed out enough or they are highly unlikeable. I feel like director Claire Denis watched a lot of David Cronenberg films and wanted to do a genre experiment herself. But it didn’t quite work out the same.

Rating: 1,5/ 5