The Martian
Ridley Scott is not so much a complicated filmmaker, but a maddeningly uneven one. Yes, there are the classics like “Alien” and “Blade Runner,” “Thelma & Louise” and “Gladiator,” but there’s also “A Good Year,” “Body of Lies,” “Robin Hood” and (for many) “Prometheus,” in which he returned to the world of “Alien,” but in a way that left much to be desired. The common denominators in all of those movies are not a central theme, but in that they rise and fall on the quality of their screenplay. On that basis alone, “The Martian” is easily one of his best films, not to mention the best he’s done since 2001’s “Black Hawk Down.”
The film is adapted from a novel by Andy Weir that tells what would be considered a “hard sci-fi” story of the simplest kind. Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is a botanist on an exploratory mission on Mars led by Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain). He’s brilliant and blustery, and has a tendency to get on the nerves of his fellow crew members. On day 18 of their mission, they receive word from NASA that a major storm is headed their way, and despite having 13 days left on the mission, they are to abort and start the long journey home. As they are making their way to the shuttle that will take them back to the ship orbiting the planet, the Hermes, the storm starts pummeling them, and some debris knocks Watney out of their group. Commander Lewis spends as much time as she can looking for him, but when it appears that he has died, she joins the rest of the crew and takes off. Everyone on the crew is heartbroken, and NASA must deliver the news of Watney’s death to the world. Miraculously, however, Watney managed to survive, and he starts trying to carve out a way of surviving on Mars- the next manned mission is not set to arrive for four more years; he’s gonna have to “science the shit” out of his resources in order to make it that long, while NASA (who doesn’t discover his survival for 30-plus days) attempts to not only deal with the complicated public relations scenario of having stranded an astronaut on Mars, but also tries to communicate with Mark, and figure out a way to keep him living.
The structure of this film is very canny. I label this film an “adventure,” and nominally, it is, but much of what we see are people sitting and talking about problems and scenarios. For Mark, this involves speaking into the base’s video log about the challenges he faces, and when we key in to the fact that he’s not really doing this for anyone but himself (because no one at NASA can see these, or knows he’s alive for a while), we see it’s not just a narrative choice but also a way for Mark to keep his sanity while he tries to work through the problems he faces. This is where the screenplay by Drew Goddard really shines through, and it’s not only dramatically sound but also wickedly funny. We already see Watney established as a bit of an arrogant smart-ass, although his crew recognizes his arrogance is more than earned, and it’s the smart-ass they have to figure out a way to deal with. But Watney is someone who can’t help but observe things in a peculiar and comedic way (he disdain for Lewis’s music collection of ’70s disco standards, for example), and that extends to the way he deals with his predicament. This is the most genuinely fun movie Scott has ever made (when he tried in “A Good Year,” let’s just say he fell way short), and while a lot of the credit goes to Goddard, who has proven himself a smart genre writer from his work on the last season of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Lost” to his feature screenplays for “Cloverfield” and “Cabin in the Woods,” this movie would not work without Matt Damon as Watney. The fact that Damon still only has two acting Oscar nods (for “Good Will Hunting” and “Invictus”) is beyond shameful, at this point, though not unexpected, since his most notable work with audiences has been in the Jason Bourne and “Ocean’s” movies. Damon is far more interesting an actor than that, though, and if you watch his performances in films like “Dogma,” “The Departed,” “The Adjustment Bureau,” “True Grit” and “The Informant!”, you see an actor who is as well-rounded and capable of nailing distinctive tones in his films as anyone in the business. You need an actor like that to carry long stretches of film by themselves, and Damon does probably the best work of his career in this film. Hopefully, acting nomination #3 is coming for his this year.
“The Martian” is not just a one-man show, though, because while it’s very much a starring vehicle for Damon, there are plenty of important supporting roles to be filled, and Scott is able to bring on a lot of huge acting talents to fill them. Once the team is off of Mars, Chastain’s Commander Lewis doesn’t have a lot of action to do, but the actress still makes the character’s arc (involving feeling guilty for Watney’s stranding to risking her career, and life, to save him) compelling, although it’s not nearly as dramatic as the one she had in last year’s “Interstellar.” More impressive is Chiwetel Ejiofor as Vincent Kapoor, who is the head of the Mars expeditions at NASA, and who has some misgivings about the way NASA (and in particular, Jeff Daniels’s Teddy Sanders) is handling the situation; Sean Bean as Mitch Henderson, who seems to be a go-between that cares more about the astronaut’s well-being and mindset than how things look from a PR perspective; and Donald Glover, who comes in late in the game as one of the people at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) who is trying to figure out how to make NASA’s plans work, and how to get Watney home. As much of the film involves Watney talking into the video blog on Mars, about as much of it deals with the efforts of NASA not only to deal with the situation in a PR manner, but also in adapting to the changing scenario on their end. How do we communicate with Mark? How much food does he have left? How can we get him supplies? Is it worth the risk of five other astronauts (the rest of Watney’s team) to send them back to Mars on a rescue mission with a whole lot of “ifs” and uncertainty to it? This part of the film is very much like “Apollo 13,” and while it’s not based on a true story, it’s every bit as riveting to watch, and populated with memorable characters and faces. It was smart of Scott to make sure to bring actors like Kristen Wiig, Michael Pena, Sabastian Stan, Kate Mara and others into roles where familiar faces can bring instant emotional connections to important characters and moments, because it makes the drama at the center of “The Martian” instantly intriguing.
More important, though, than the human aspect of a Ridley Scott film, more often than not, is the technical accomplishments, and Scott has brought his A+ game to “The Martian.” It’s no surprise that the director of “Alien” and “Prometheus” is able to bring something distinctive to his vision of the red planet, and his visual effects wizards, along with cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, have some amazing sights for us. This is a truly beautiful vision, and watching Watney challenge the elements on the planet is an adventure in and of itself. The ingenuity Watney displays is shown with the same clarity and imagination we have come to expect from the director of some of the most stunning visual movies of the past 40 years, and it’s exciting to watch and listen to, as composer Harry Gregson-Williams (“Kingdom of Heaven”) gives Scott an inventive musical landscape on par with those he had from Jerry Goldsmith on “Alien” and Vangelis on “Blade Runner.” This is a master filmmaker inspiring his collaborators in the best way possible. It doesn’t always happen with Scott, as was outlined earlier, but when he has a strong narrative foundation to start with, it’s not surprising when we get something special out of the filmmaker.
