“I do what I do because of my dad. He was a hero. He gave his life for the pursuit of knowledge. Because up there is where our story is going to be told.”

Roy McBride

Ad Astra (literally “to the stars”) is the kind of slow and thoughtful science fiction, grounded in reality and exploring themes of humanity, that takes time to percolate after the credits roll. It lies somewhere between Moon, with a gradually emerging mystery, and Gravity, with most of its peril coming from the very real dangers of space. Despite its scale, spanning the solar system, Ad Astra is a supremely personal story and Pitt acts largely with his eyes, his focused steady gaze as the unflappable astronaut gradually giving way to doubt. He is driven to discover what became of his father’s pioneering mission to Neptune and we see in both men how heroic determination leads to an unscientific need to be right, but it is in shedding those ideas of cold masculinity and accepting the fragility of his isolation that Roy emerges a far stronger figure than his father.

8/10