Love Review

A tedious, wispy space musical from director William Eubank and alt-rock band Angels and Airwaves.

Commissioned by alt-rock group Angels and Airwaves (who also provide the widdly score), and inspired by Carl Sagan’s book, Pale Blue Dot, Love is an earnest sci-fi drama that mines familiar themes of isolation and connection in its slow-moving tale of a stranded astronaut. Wearing its influences on its puffy spacesuit sleeve, Love doesn’t so much nod toward the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and Moon as repeatedly grovel on the floor in blank reverence.

The film opens with a disorienting prologue set in the midst of the bloody American Civil War in 1864, where a bedraggled Union captain is sent on a mission to investigate a mysterious object. Without warning, the film rudely cuts to the year 2039, where lone US astronaut Lee Miller (Gunner Wright) has been dispatched to the International Space Station to examine its suitability for use. The lonely Miller spends his days exercising and picking up the occasional message from home, until one day he makes an unusual discovery that finally links back to the film’s opening stages.

While Love certainly isn’t short on wispy existential ruminations, young director William Eubank is at a loss to structure his material, resulting in an excruciating, longeur-stuffed crawl of anti-drama that only really gets going in the final 15 minutes, by which point it’s too late. Odd inserts of videotaped ‘talking head’ interviews with (faux?) members of the public musing on their experiences only serve to confuse matters further.

On the plus side, the decent visuals belie the film’s tiny budget, while the interiors of the spacecraft have clearly been intricately and lovingly designed. As the lone spaceman, Gunner Wright puts in a respectable shift, though he has exceptionally little to work with.

At one point, a spooky, disembodied female voice asks of Miller, "Why do you think we’re here?" As you try in vain to stifle the yawns, you’ll likely be asking yourself the same question.