Film Review: ‘The Space Between Us’ Falls Into a Black Hole & Dies

Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 2, 2017 - 9:21pm

CHICAGO – You know you’re in trouble when the opening scene of a film inspires forehead slapping levels of incredulity. And that’s just the beginning of what I felt while watching “The Space Between Us,” another entry in the long line of would-be weepies about young lovers torn apart, usually by class or disease. The film desperately wants to be a millennial love story for a generation, and has plenty of faults but precious few stars in its tale of literal star-crossed lovers.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

This time instead of my new boyfriend is a cancer patient, or my new boyfriend is from the wrong side of the tracks, “The Space Between Us” central conceit is that the new boyfriend Gardner (Asa Butterfield) is a “Martian.” The son of an astronaut who got pregnant before her mission to Mars, and then died in childbirth on the red planet, Gardner is raised on NASA’s martian colony called “East Texas”… and is raised by fellow astronaut Kendra (Carla Gugino), who serves as a mother figure. The mission’s billionaire founder (Gary Oldman) keeps the boy’s existence a secret to avoid bad P.R., which would derail the mission and the company.

While on the red planet, Gardner strikes up an interplanetary pen pal relationship with a strong willed foster kid on earth named Tulsa (Britt Robertson), and he longs to visit the planet of his origin to see her, and also to try to find his father – but since he’s lived all his life on Mars he may not survive the trip back. He petitions to come back and it’s accepted. Once he arrives on this planet, he escapes quarantine and his NASA handlers, and hops a bus to meet up with Tulsa.

”The Space Between Us” opens everywhere on February 3rd. Featuring Gary Oldman, Britt Robertson, Asa Butterfield, Janet Montgomery, Carla Gugino, B.D. Wong and Colin Egglesfield. Screenplay by Allan Loeb. Directed by Peter Chelsom. Rated “PG-13”