Sputnik
“Sputnik” is a riff on the “Alien” formula, and a very smart, exciting one to watch. It’s a tricky thing to do, and not just because the first two “Alien” movies set the bar so high. If you’re going to walk that trail, you need to figure out a way in that feels fresh, and speaks to something in humanity, along with being a strong thriller.
The film starts out in space, in 1983. A couple of Russian astronauts are preparing to come back to Earth, when they see something outside the capsule. They land, but it isn’t a pretty one, and one of the astronauts has died on the way back in. The second one, Konstantin Veshnyakov (Pyotr Fyodorov), is badly hurt, but is found to recover quickly. Not long afterwards, a doctor, Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina), is brought in to investigate, because she has a track record of taking risks, something the military leader in charge of this situation (Fedor Bondarchuk) needs for this particular situation.
The screenplay by Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev mixes a lot of different genre films together, drawing not just from the “Alien” franchise but “Splice,” “Species” and “Cloverfield,” as well as throwing in some government cover-up ideas that we’ll recognize from last year’s “Chernobyl” miniseries. There’s something unique about the alien here, however, and how the military respond to it, that leaves us following every moment of Tatyana’s observation. The alien has a familiar look to it, but while it’s not above killing human beings, there’s also a need to live with humanity that is striking and unique in how it is developed. There are downtimes during this 114-minute thriller, but plenty of narrative twists brought in in how director Egor Abramenko tells the story, and directs the actors, to hold our interest, because each set piece only adds one more piece of the puzzle.
One of the most interesting things in this movie, and why I thought of “Chernobyl,” is how it portrays Soviet-era propaganda and secrets. There’s a lot in this film that the government does not want to come out, and it almost starts at the beginning of Tatyana’s introduction to the movie. As a doctor, trying to give the best care to her patient is an important ethos for her to live by; it’s the way she goes about it that gets her in trouble with patient family members- even when it’s successful- and the medical board, but that’s why she’s also sought after for this operation. Her outside-the-box thinking is what they are looking at when it comes to this particular alien menace, and how it latches itself on to humans. Again, this is a riff on the “Alien” formula, not a replica, and it’s a very good riff, starting from a place of symbiosis that leaves us, and the characters, unsure of how to proceed moving forward. How it does so, and what they are doing already, has us questioning not just how we would approach the problem, but whether what they’re doing is right or not. This is as much a film about ethical human behavior, and personal responsibility, as it is about jump scares regarding aliens, and it’s why “Sputnik” keeps us on the edge of our seat the whole way to the end.
