“Ad Astra” and “Abominable” are not easily recognisable as thematically complementary works but there’s something to be said about the dual journeys of the two protagonists – both of them buoyed by a relationship hinging on an absent father – that made me think of them in relation to each other. The father-child dynamic has been a dramatically rich one for centuries of stories, but neither journey seems to be reaching for new heights in their deployment of this trope.
The Brad Pitt space drama, “Ad Astra,” directed by James Gray centres on Roy McBride, an astronaut who is selected to lead an important space mission, to go in search of his father, whose actions may be threatening to the entire solar system. McBride’s search for the father he previously thought dead is the mission that defines “Ad Astra”’s structure. The search riffs on the “Heart of Darkness” dynamic of Joseph Conrad, with Roy’s search for a father he has mirrored his career on. So the ghost of Father McBride looms over the film as Roy goes deeper into the unknown, literally and emotionally.
“Ad Astra” has become the space for a surprisingly bizarre argument about the legitimacy of the film’s blinkered focus on masculine identity and emotions. It’s clear that Gray, also the scriptwriter, imagines the remoteness of space as the perfect setting for the emotionally remote Roy, who must come to grips with his own coldness. “Ad Astra” is blinkered in its own focus on Roy at the expense of any other character in the film, male or female; everything is filtered through his perspective.
“Ad Astra” perhaps perplexes because despite its singular focus on Roy, it’s not as incisive enough to work as a true character study. Despite an occasionally clunky voice-over, the film never really seems to reveal Roy’s inner idiosyncrasies to us. But the film’s own cerebral philosophical nature makes it too reticent to work as a high octane space blockbuster. It is, though, exactly the sort of elegiac space symphony that we would expect from James Gray. In fact, there’s something quite similar to this journey as crucible metaphor that makes” Ad Astra” a recognisable successor to Gray’s previous film – “The Lost City of Z,” a film which hones in on the father/son dynamic of a futile trip in its final act to more affecting proportions. And viewed through those lens, “Ad Astra” comes up slightly short in the way it seems too limited in its focus.
Brad Pitt’s weepy eyes are the film’s best visual effect – even more potent then Hoyt van Hoytema’s evocative photography. Pitt packs an element of emotional fervour into a role that feels a bit too underdeveloped to be as affecting. In a way the narrative emptiness works to the film’s advantage in another way. We are left to project our own longing and despair onto the film’s melancholic view of a man apart and a man alone in the world. It’s a less rewarding idea than the idea of a space adventure that “Ad Astra” may promise, but the formal rigour of the tale feels thoughtful enough to offset any narrative lack of ambition.
Curiously, it’s that very lack of ambition – despite even more overt potential marks of value – that plague “Abominable”. Like in “Ad Astra”, there’s a journey at the centre. Yi, our Chinese protagonist, is mourning her dead father. His violin is a physical memento of her loss. Her mourning is interrupted when a yeti from Everest, on the run from some terrible people, ends up on the roof of her apartment building. And Yi, feeling some empathy for this lost creature, decides to make it her mission to get him back home. There’s no father waiting at the end of the line for her in “Abominable”, but Abominable is depending on the relationship between Yi and her violin to be the film’s emotional backbone.
It almost works. In the film’s only truly evocative sequence Yi plays the violin on the Leshan Giant Buddha in Sichuan in a moment that is reliably emotionally open. The moment is off-set by an arrangement of Coldplay’s “Fix You” that feels out of place though. “Abominable” is important for the representation it offers to Asian characters, and it’s not that Chinese families may not respond to Coldplay but it’s one of a series of moments in “Abominable” that feel less thoughtful than we’d hope. “Abominable” is first solo-female-directed film with a female protagonist, it offers a reliably necessary expression of Asian culture with Asian voice-actors voicing its Asian characters and yet despite all this importance behind the scenes the actual finished product feels achingly and oddly dull in its manifestation.
To be fair, “Abominable” is never unpleasant, and it’s hard to root against its well-meaning goodness as Yi and her two sidekicks work on getting their yeti back home. But, the film is less inventive, both as a narrative as an aesthetic piece. The design of the central yeti figure seems inherent to that. The yeti itself seems to be designed more with the idea of a plush doll in mind than with a mythical creature with real dramatic import, and the film’s own animation aesthetic is less compelling than it could be. It doesn’t help that narrative-wise this film seems pulled from so many thematically similar journey films – most notably “Small Foot,” which does a more coherent job of dealing with the Yeti/human dynamic. I’ll admit, “Abominable” becomes less compelling for me because despite the promise of the violin’s significance, the film is less enthused about embracing its own musicality.
There’s a sweet message about the importance of family at the film’s end and the film engages with a nice – if predictable – idea about humans recognising their need to not engage with some species. But, “Abominable” ends its journey with a shrug more than a sharp rallying cry. It’s fine, but it’s not a journey you’d necessarily want to repeat.
“Abominable” is currently playing at local theatres.
