The Space Between Us (2017)

The first human born on Mars travels to Earth for the first time, experiencing the wonders of the planet through fresh eyes. He embarks on an adventure with a street smart girl to discover how he came to be.

Director:

Peter Chelsom

Writers:

Allan Loeb (screenplay by), Stewart Schill (story by)

Stars:

Gary Oldman, Asa Butterfield, Carla Gugino

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gary Oldman	...	Nathaniel Shepherd
Janet Montgomery	...	Sarah Elliot
Trey Tucker	...	Harrison Lane
Scott Takeda	...	Dr. Gary Loh
Adande 'Swoozie' Thorne	...	Scott Hubbard
Sarah Minnich	...	Reporter
Ryan Jason Cook	...	Control Room Technician
BD Wong	...	Tom Chen
Lauren Chavez-Myers	...	Alice Myers (as Lauren Myers)
Morse Bicknell	...	NASA Executive
Beth Bailey	...	NASA Chief Doctor
Asa Butterfield	...	Gardner Elliot
Peter Chelsom	...	Centaur (voice)
Carla Gugino	...	Kendra Wyndham
William Sterchi	...	Debate Moderator

Storyline

In this interplanetary adventure, a space shuttle embarks on the first mission to colonize Mars, only to discover after takeoff that one of the astronauts is pregnant. Shortly after landing, she dies from complications while giving birth to the first human born on the red planet - never revealing who the father is. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Gardner Elliot - an inquisitive, highly intelligent boy who reaches the age of 16 having only met 14 people in his very unconventional upbringing. While searching for clues about his father, and the home planet he's never known, Gardner begins an online friendship with a street smart girl in Colorado named Tulsa. When he finally gets a chance to go to Earth, he's eager to experience all of the wonders he could only read about on Mars - from the most simple to the extraordinary. But once his explorations begin, scientists discover that Gardner's organs can't withstand Earth's atmosphere. Eager to find his father, Gardner escapes the team...

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Plot Keywords:

mars | astronaut | futuristic | space mission | nasa | 

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Taglines:

His heart it can't handle our gravity.

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for brief sensuality and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official Instagram

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 February 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

Out of This World

Filming Locations:

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$30,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,775,596, 3 February 2017, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$7,829,766, 24 February 2017

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$14,793,385

Company Credits

Production Co:

Los Angeles Media Fund (LAMF),STX Entertainment,Southpaw Entertainment (I)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Spaceport America in New Mexico hosted their first movie shoot. There were over 400 crew, actors and extras at the spaceport during the shoot.

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Goofs

A major point in the plot is that Sarah Elliot's pregnancy will be complicated by the "Zero-G" environment. However, external views of the spacecraft clearly show that its engines are on, meaning that the ship is under thrust, and thus is generating g-forces in the direction opposite to that thrust. In any event, even if this brief glimpse is not representative of the entire voyage, it is highly unlikely that a manned mission to Mars would coast in free fall all the way, but would instead use the "turn and burn" method, accelerating to the midway point, flipping over, and decelerating to the end of the journey. Thus, the constant presence of acceleration would create g-forces that would eliminate the very peril for Sarah's pregnancy the film describes.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Nathaniel Shepherd: [speaking from the podium] I wanted to go to Mars. Not just a visit, I want to live there. Because then I'd be living truth that life on Mars Is possible. Proof that if we had to, Mankind can make a fresh start. We're in trouble and it's our fault, and we're running out of time, and mother nature doesn't negotiate. We can't give up, not now. Mars is a planet, ripe and ready for life. Earth's resources might be depleted but there is one resource we must never neglect. It's the most ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

The closing credits list Colin Egglesfield, who played Sarah's brother, as "Sarah's bother."

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Connections

Featured in The Graham Norton Show: Andrew Garfield/Annette Bening/Harriet Harman/Asa Butterfield/Elbow (2017)

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Soundtracks

Song of India
Traditional Arrangement by Raymond Scott
Performed by Raymond Scott and His Quintet (as The Raymond Scott Quintet) with Dorothy Collins
Courtesy of Reckless Night Music LLC & Basta Music

User Reviews

Pinocchio from Mars

You know how it goes. The boy (Asa Butterfield) meets the girl (Britt Robertson), there's mutual liking and they want to meet... but there's a space between them. So he will travel to Earth from the Mars colony where he was born.

Also starring: Gary Oldman, Carla Gugino, and B.D. Wong, because even the coolest teenagers need some adults around.

"The Space Between Us" rides on the current wave of Young Adult, or YA for short, novels and movies which has dowsed the cinemas for the last ten years or so.

It's still about romance, some sci-fi and action like the most of them (or at least the most popular of them) but it brings some refreshing changes to the menu.

It's based on an original screenplay and not novel. It offers sci-fi and action without relying on done to death YA clichés (dystopian society, dating or fighting supernatural beings, etc). It puts characters in real danger so you can't always predict whether everybody's gonna make it. It doesn't have clear-cut good and bad guys...

And last but by far not least, the movie has a nice classic Steven Spielberg-ian feel which puts the sense of wonder and adventure back to sci-fi which, in my humble opinion, is often missing or buried under all those visual effects and pizazz setpieces.

Even good old Spielberg himself is not always able to pull it off: the movie makes you actually care about the characters because there's a real human backbone to the story. It's entertainment but it also has heart.

All this rests very much on the lead man Asa Butterfield who was 18 during the filming and turns 20 this April.

Former child star of "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", Scorsese's "Hugo" and "Ender's Game" fame, this guy has grown to become a fine young actor indeed.

I very much enjoyed his soft but sure performance as an innocent and fragile alien braving the world unknown to him. He has found a seemingly perfect balance between strange, childlike and soulful that the role asks of him, and I'd be glad to see him getting some awards or nominations for this standout work.

He even has this memorable, Pinocchio-ish appearance and style of moving which seems suitable for a person not used to Earth's gravity.

The other characters stay more in the background, so this turns out to be Asa Butterfield's show, and he more than fulfills the promise.

The next most interesting performance comes from Oldman who ventures in the land of brashness and theatricality, in a good way. The aging thespian hasn't offered this kind of colorfulness for quite some time (in a big movie, at least) and I enjoyed it to the point of feeling that his character was underused. Holding him in the background makes sense in the context of a whole story, though.

If you find my score surprisingly high, please remember that it's made for a YA crowd, or at least a teenager in all of us. I would not recommend it alongside 8 out of 10 movies made for older viewer groups. Probably.

But 8 is not too generous. I liked "Space" very much and its overall quality more than compensates a shallow story which surely would work better longer. This could be a bona fide modern classic if the characters and events had more room to develop and breathe. Maybe in the form of (mini-)series or something.

If you like "The Space Between Us" and look for something similar to watch, I would recommend 2014's "The Fault in Our Stars" for moving YA story, or 2015's "Tomorrowland" as an uneven but good example of how to combine sci-fi and action in a YA movie.

I choose to end this review with an off-topic anecdote which I just happen to like very much:

Q: Why did astronaut leave his wife? A: He needed more space