Films for Breakfast

For the longest time, January was known as a dumping ground for film releases by the major studios. You wanted to see something good? You’d have to wait until February at the earliest, as January was often brimming with god-awful horror films, worse-than-average action flicks, and abysmal romantic comedies. However, in recent years, I’ve found that January has actually been home to some of the years’ most interest films – it has evolved past being a cemetery for the films studios want to bury, and instead turned into a haven for films that can’t necessarily compete with higher-budget films but often have some merit of their own. I.S.S. fits nicely in that camp, as the film is a high-concept thriller that also has a pretty small-scale and a seemingly modest budget. 

The film begins in the near future, as Dr. Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose) and her American crew as they board the International Space Station along with Russian astronauts. However, tensions quickly flare as a worldwide conflict breaks out down below them on Earth and both the U.S. and Russian astronauts get transmitted instructions: take control of the station by any means necessary. This conflict and newfound mission quickly fumbles what was meant to be a neutral exploration and turns into a tension-fuelled trip where no one can trust each other.

The concept alone is pretty killer – I remember seeing the teaser for the film for the first time recently, and single-handedly the shot of the nukes going off on Earth from the POV of the I.S.S. absolutely terrified me. While nothing else in the film quite reaches the shock and terror evoked within being so many miles apart from nuclear warfare on your home planet as you float in space, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and writer Nick Shafir craft an engaging thriller that hinges as much on the driving tension between its central characters than it does action or spectacle.

One of the best things about I.S.S. is how efficient the character work is from the get-go. From the moment the film begins and you’re introduced to the American crew, it feels as if you know a sufficient amount of information about these characters and what is driving them to be here. As the film progresses, you learn more about not only the Russian crew on-board, but their relationships with each other and how even more complex it makes the outbreak of war below on Earth. The film could have easily went head-first into a film where we, as American audiences, are driven to immediately root for the American astronauts to take command of the I.S.S. – but the film lingers in the moral complexity of the situation and how their relationships with one another are so prominent that it excels past government orders.

A big reason why the film and especially the tension at hand works as well as it does is because of the cast and their chemistry with one-another. Ariana DeBose is really great as the lead here, standing as a morally righteous and head-strong leader put in an incredibly difficult circumstance. She, and all of the cast members, have to do a lot of subtle acting here to convey what they’re thinking and planning without showing their true cards to the other characters, on the chance that they are plotting against them. Chris Messina and John Gallagher Jr. are performers who always turn in excellent work no matter what they show up in, and this is no exception – both play morally grey characters that keep you guessing until the very end, and they play it wonderfully.

As for the Russian crew, I love both the way the characters are performed (actor Pilou Asbæk is a real highlight here, as he really turns in a committed and restrained performance) and written. The film goes out of its way to make these characters as equally compelling and thought-out as the American astronauts. When tension finally hits the breaking point and boils over, it is both tense and heartbreaking the see the two sides clash. In that sense, the film is extremely effective for building up the tension properly but making you emotionally conflicted for what you’re watching.

Some may find the small scale of I.S.S. to be a bit too confined and that the ending needs more resolution/excitement than it offers – but I found both of these elements to be refreshing and set the film apart from other similar thrillers. My only real knock against the film is that the scale does set a certain ceiling for how deep it can explore its themes and ideas in a profoundly interesting way, so I can’t quite call it “great” – but I did find it to be an extremely impressive exercise in thrills and character-based tension that is an incredibly solid start to the New Year.

3.5/5