A brave movie that presents a challenging moral dilemma without shying away from the consequences

Rating: 8/10 (9 January 2017)

I watched Passengers yesterday and liked it a lot. It's not a perfect movie, but I was quite disturbed by some of the reviews I read. Some call it an "interstellar version of social-media stalking", or "a creepy ode to manipulation".
I don't agree at all with these views and frankly I find that these comments say a lot more about our society today, so quick to judge and point fingers, than to the movie in itself, which has many flaws but manages to present a moral dilemma very well and doesn't shy away from the gravity of it.
Passengers could have been a banal and controversy-free film very easily: if the two characters had just been woken up together by mistake, we would have spent the movie watching them slowly fall in love while saving the ship. Instead, the filmmakers had the courage to present an incredibly interesting choice and its consequences.
The key point of the criticism is the fact that Chris Pratt's character Jim decides to wake up Jennifer Lawrence's character Aurora from hibernation, in order to have someone else to share a lifetime of otherwise loneliness with. On top of that, in the end, she falls in love with him and forgives what he's done.
Now, if I read what I just wrote, I admit there's a part of me wanting to judge this story as creepy and outright bad, but luckily I gave the filmmakers a chance and went to see the movie with an open mind. And I wasn't creeped out at all because the movie does an incredibly good job at putting us in Jim's shoes.
Here is exactly where I think most of those who condemn the movie fail: if I honestly imagine myself in Jim's situation (ie. condemned to a lifetime of loneliness), I do believe that eventually I would give in and wake someone up. And what's best is that we are completely part of Jim's dilemma: he knows it's wrong and he does his best not to give in. But in the end, after over a YEAR of solitude with the prospect of the rest of his life being the same, he wakes up the woman he has gotten to know through her writing and videos, and whom he thinks he loves.
So is this a justification for stalkers and manipulators? NO. It's not because stalkers and manipulators HAVE a real alternative, Jim doesn't. Stalkers and manipulators lack the ability to really sympathise with their victims and see them as objects, Jim doesn't.
He's a man that does something terrible and never once during the movie does he think what he did was right. He then tries to confess, but is so lost in the happiness he found that he can't even bring himself to do that.
Does this mean we should feel bad for stalkers everywhere? NO. It's a clever investigation of the human soul, of what we are capable of when pushed to the limit and of how important human interaction is to our very survival.
Aurora's character arc is just as engaging and Lawrence's reaction when she learns the truth is brilliantly heartbreaking, result of great acting combined with great directing, so once again we feel the whole weight of Jim's action, just as both of them do.
The rest of the movie is spent with Jim trying to make amends for what he did and Aurora slowly learning to understand why he did it and finally accepting it.
I'm the first to admit that the second half of the movie, and the whole third act in particular, would have maybe worked better without the big action sequences, and that most of what happens feels convenient in giving Jim occasions to show his heroism to Aurora. I also personally would have preferred an ending where she chooses to go back to sleep. But these are just my own ideas, the movie and the character arcs work as they are and don't feel forced.
So, is this a justification of manipulation, like saying 'it's okay as long as she accepts it at the end?' NO. Again, because of the extreme situation these characters find themselves into, casting a simplistic judgment on their actions and emotions is both meaningless and naive. Aurora takes over a year and goes through everything that happens in the action- packed third act to arrive at a point where she decides that she loves Jim IN SPITE of what he did.
Condemning Jim for waking Aurora up and Aurora for falling in love with him in spite of that means choosing to be blind to everything that happens in between those moments, and it also means being blind to the reality of human life: that even horrible things can be forgiven, though of course this is not a justification for committing horrible things in the first place.
If we compare Passengers with movies like the Twilight saga or Fifty Shades of Grey, it becomes evident how Passengers is light-years ahead of the other two. While Mr. Grey's clear, real-life stalking and manipulation is presented as an example of romance, Jim's weakness is human and sad as only great characters can be.
I think the main problem people have with this movie is the fact that it's an intelligent movie WHILE ALSO being a big crowd-pleasing sci-fi blockbuster. If the same story had been made with unknown actors, a moodier tone and half the budget, how many of those reviewers on their high horses would have instead praised it?