We should all squirm when watching this!!!

Rating: 3/10 (20 January 2017)

I should start by saying that I think this film gets a lot of things right. It's very real, it's very beautiful, it's wonderfully acted, it's interesting and engaging. But I have a MASSIVE problem with the central premise, and I am astonished to the point of outrage that other user reviews completely ignore this glaring, morally bankrupt problem.
**SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER**
I am glad that the movie takes the time to have Jim think very carefully about whether or not to wake Aurora. I am totally on board with the emotional anguish Jim must have felt, with no human contact for over a year. I have sympathy for his situation.
BUT!!!!!!
What he did in waking Aurora was an abuse of power. He ignored her right to choice (and she had chosen to be in extended hibernation until the ship docked in Homestead). He woke her for entirely selfish (albeit understandable) reasons. When Aurora tells Gus - rightly - that Jim's actions are tantamount to murder, he basically responds, "get over it, what was the poor guy to do?" And none of us should be okay with that.
This plot device is deeply disturbing because it propagates the view that men's emotions are more important than women's. It's okay for men to abuse their power/authority if there are "extenuating circumstances"- and if there are, then the victim (woman/other man/child) just needs to shush up already. The victim's trauma is immaterial if the perpetrator was feeling upset/stressed/unhappy/whatever.
Look. I understand that Jim was suffering in his loneliness. But what happened to him was an accident; what happened to Aurora was Jim's choice, and he had no right to make that choice.
And what makes it worse is that this moral travesty is being sold to us as a love story. What exactly was Aurora going to do, stuck on a ship with only one other human being? Of course she was going to form an emotional connection with Jim. But that's not love, it's called Stockholm Syndrome. And once it developed, the manipulative, victim/abuser dynamic was established. Aurora's choice to stay awake with Jim was not a choice - it was impossible for her to regain agency by that point.
I want to like this film and I thought the actors were fabulous - Jennifer Lawrence, especially. But I'm sorry - I just can't get past the implicit message that abuse of power in relationships is ever okay. Keep your kids away from this one.