Hey, remember when people used to make ambitious films? You go to the theater these days, and the best you can hope for is something approximating a coherent plot. Acting is a bonus. Special effects, sure. You never have the expectation of seeing interesting themes or ideas presented on the screen. Buttered movie popcorn helps mitigate the pain, but it can only go so far. It's just like that Smiths song says: "the [movies] they constantly play, they say nothing to me about my life." But every now and again, a director comes along who sweeps you off your feet and restores your faith in the medium of film. Enter Danny Boyle, master of the visual perspective, herald of the inexplicably gorgeous, and disciple of the human condition. He's the one who brought us the filthiest toilet in Scotland as the location of an ethereal swimming scene. He's the one who brought us an existential zombie movie. He's the one who made Hitchcock-style camera angles cool again. He's a revelation. He's a burning bush. He's a prophet from the creative ether, sent to save us all from the cinematic ennui that threatens to devour us.

Okay, so I'm getting carried away as usual. It's just so rare to find a director with such a unique aesthetic, who loves energetic plots and darker themes and yet isn't afraid to get a little cerebral from time to time (alright, very cerebral in some cases). I adore Danny Boyle, and I would watch anything he directed. Anything. Even a Ronco commercial or a Lifetime Movie-of-the-Week (I hear Meredith Baxter-Birney's a big fan as well). Some of his films may be flawed, it's true, but his style and point of view always make for an enjoyable experience.

Boyle's most recent film is Sunshine, and I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that I loved it. I've seen it twice already. Critics have said that the pacing is uneven, and I'm pretty sure they're right, but it seems to me that the film manages to transcend its own weaknesses (much like its characters do). Anyway, the premise is this. Our sun is dying ... way ahead of schedule. Like within the next 50 years. So the good people of Earth build a super-nifty space ship, christen it the Icarus, and send it off toward the sun, where the crew is expected to shoot off a massive nuclear bomb. The hope is that the resulting explosion will rekindle it, forming a new star within the old one. They're not sure it will work, but what the heck, right? Anything's better than just sittin' around waiting for the lights to go out. Unfortunately, the ship disappears before detonating its bomb. So those good old tenacious Earthlings try again, sending a replacement crew in a duplicate ship, which is of course known as the Icarus II. (Seriously ... how about naming the ship after someone who didn't die.) This is where the movie really begins.

Our current crop of strapping young astronauts includes such notables as Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne, Hiroyuki Sanada (there is evidently an attractiveness requirement for the space program of the future), and Chris Evans (hey, it's Johnny Storm!). At the heart of the movie, though, is the beautiful Cillian Murphy, who portrays Capa, the ship's resident physicist, and also acts as the film's narrator. His remarkable blue eyes are the lens through which we witness the voyage of the Icarus and the wonders it encounters. Incidentally, I've been a fan of Cillian Murphy ever since 28 Days Later (another Boyle film), where he played a bicycle courier who wakes from a coma to discover that London has been taken over by highly aggressive zombies. Since then he's played a number of eccentric roles, from the Scarecrow in Batman Begins to the cross-dressing "Kitten" in Breakfast on Pluto. I think he's great. All his performances have a quiet intensity to them, an odd mixture of openness and inscrutability. Not that he has to work terribly hard with eyes like that. (Shut up, I do NOT have a crush on him.) And speaking of eyes, Boyle uses a good deal of ocular imagery throughout the film. There are all these shots of the human eye in profile, seemingly parallel with the curvature of the sun. It's very cool.

As for the rest of the cast, they more than pull their weight. Rose Byrne does a great job of seeming both tough and vulnerable. Michelle Yeoh brings grace to the role of the ship's botanist, who cares for the ship's oxygen garden as if each and every plant was her own offspring. The greatest surprise to me, though, may have been Chris Evans as Mace. (The guy was in Not Another Teen Movie, for crying out loud.) At first you sort of dislike his character in Sunshine. He comes off as belligerent, cold, and bereft of sympathy. But as events progress, you come to realize that he is by far the most pragmatic member of the team, and therefore the one most likely to ensure their collective survival. He doesn't flinch when faced with difficult decisions, and although he seems to expect perfection from his crew mates, he is more than willing to hold himself to the same high standard.

So yeah. Where was I? When they are nearing their destination, the crew receives a seven-year-old distress signal from the Icarus I. Needless to say, the astronauts are at odds about how to deal with this new information. Should they deviate from their primary mission to check for survivors? I'm sure you can guess what the eventual decision is, although it's far from unanimous, and this becomes a later point of contention for a crew whose morale is already unraveling. Seriously, can you imagine spending years at a time in an enclosed space with the same seven people? Yikes. It'd be like a Sartre play on methamphetamines. But Boyle isn't afraid to delve into the whole spectrum of human behavior, including the petty squabbles and the predictable displays of selfishness. There is generosity and nobility, but there is also nihilism. There are messy choices to be made, many of which strain our sense of ethics. Skepticism exists alongside full-fledged spiritual obsession. The psych officer in particular, played by Cliff Curtis (remember him in Whale Rider?), comes to regard his close proximity to the sun as the ideal mystical experience. He spends hours upon hours in the viewing room, where the sun's brightness is dialed down just enough to prevent his retinas from burning. He describes feeling a sense of ecstasy in these moments, as if the light has become a part of him. As the film wears on, his skin begins to peel.

Whatever premise he generates, whatever genre he's operating within, Danny Boyle is first and foremost a sociologist. He has a complex view of humanity, to be sure--one that doesn't shy away from the darkest, most brutish impulses that exist within us--but ultimately his perspective is a generous one. He knows that human beings are difficult, and he embraces that. But he also knows that we're fighters, with a tremendous strength of will that can work miracles if applied in the right set of circumstances. This is a theme that is emphasized throughout Sunshine. His characters may be doomed (or they believe that they are), yet they never go quietly into that good night. That's why the ship was sent to restart the sun in the first place. That's why the crew soldiers on, committed to the mission, even after things get all wonky and scary. Even in their moments of terror, they are scintillant with their own humanity.

Of course, there are many mythological themes at work here. The most obvious is the story of Icarus himself, which everyone knows (he was the idiot with the wax wings). Boyle also refers us to the notion that humans cannot look upon the face of God (or Zeus) without being incinerated by the brightness. To further drive this home, there are lots of shots of human figures silhouetted against the giant sun. And since we're talking about cinematography, let me just reiterate that Boyle is a visual master. He gives so much attention to the composition of every scene--he's a lot like Kubrick in that way--and it's all driven by a keen sense of human psychology. Shots are beautifully framed even when they don't need to be. It's not an accident that he contrasts the dark, claustrophobic confines of the Icarus with the massive sun looming nearby. And some of the scenes that take place outside the ship are so beautiful you just may cry a little bit without even realizing it.

The visuals of course work in concert with the music. Remember the last few moments of Shallow Grave, when that Andy Williams song "Happy Heart" starts playing just as the camera pans down to the money beneath the floor? That was the moment of my conversion. And of course there was that raw, melancholy theme that kept surfacing throughout 28 Days Later, its elegaic insistence reminding us how fragile this construct called civilization really is. The music in Sunshine is used to even greater effect, if that's possible. It's simple and it's employed sparingly, but the way it builds during particular scenes ... I can't describe it, except to say that it left me feeling breathless and exhilarated and deeply moved.

There are things in Sunshine that will remind you of other sci-fi films. Definitely 2001: A Space Odyssey. Solaris, too (both versions). Event Horizon even sticks its creepy head in there toward the end. But the movie Boyle gives us here is entirely his own. I loved it, and I recommend it for anyone who enjoys thoughtful, genre-stretching cinema. No popcorn required.

Tags: movies