Simple/simplistic or fundamental/elemental? For me, the latter!

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2017)

This film from Director Morten Tyldum has quite a lot going for it. First and foremost, it is incredibly bold in its envisioning of the future, with spacecraft travelling to the stars on missions extending in length to centuries. (in this scenario, Arcturus, at 36.7 light years away from Earth, is a point closer to the beginning of the journey to "Homestead II" than the end; with a close pass of that star being used to further accelerate the truly gigantic vessel, the Avalon). Not the slightest hint of how we got to that from our present primitive, first-toe-in-the-water stage is given here, and that is surprisingly refreshing: we may simply take for granted that this kind of technological level has been reached somehow, and go on and "enjoy the show".
I certainly did!
While the most recent Star Trek movie, "Gravity" and "Interstellar" all set high standards for imagining vessels and worlds into existence, "Passengers" takes the prize for me; the ship is simply exquisite, but also surprisingly "realistic" and believable. Inside, it is sumptuous, full of hi-tech ready to serve; but that comes at a price - the more you pay, the better standard you get. Shades of the Titanic, but - although our great vessel does indeed sustain a serious collision that injects some edge into the story from the very outset - all is at first subsumed by a rather light touch, as the commercial side of this venture is made abundantly clear.
This then is no Star Trek-like exploration, no military/public-sector mission, no last attempt of human civilisation to escape the Earth and save itself for posterity. Rrather, it is a paid (basically one-way) passage to a new world, whereby 200+ crew serve 5000+ passengers/colonists/upper-class economic migrants, but all are in suspended animation for just about the entire journey.
All, that is, except for one unlucky guy Jim (a very good part for Chris Pratt), who is awakened from stasis by the aforementioned collision and proceeds to ponder/despair on how he is going to manage for decades with only machines of various degrees of sophistication for company. The latter reach their peak in (the top half of) barman Arthur (Arthur in Avalon - get it?), as very well-played by Welshman Michael Sheen. Sweetly, various systems on the ship also feature the British voice of Emma Clarke - art imitating life, as Emma also voices the London Underground, and - to the best of my knowledge - also many lifts (elevators) around the world.
Hence the "canvas" against which the main drama plays out is huge and stark, but in other places also rich and entertaining.
Now set that against a surprisingly simple storyline that nevertheless has a very great deal of meaning to offer. There is a definite hint of The Bible in here, as our lonely Adam in his Paradise needs an Eve, and he commits a kind of "original sin" to get one (in the pleasant enough shape of Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence)). Not too many more clues from me over that, but let us say that we get to think about many issues of basic human need and loneliness, and what these things can justify. This occupies much of the film, as does a rather beautiful (and at times erotic enough) on-and-off love affair between the stars (in every sense of the term).
Eventually, briefly, our two humans are joined by a third. But for a lot of the time, it's just the two of them, with hopes, ambitions and memories, and of course with Arthur the android, who is a great deal better than a laptop, but can't quite bridge that gap to full humanity.
Given that we also have several sub-stories about the desire to hand-make things in a ship that repairs and maintains itself (or at least should do), the desire to bring untidy nature into these rather clinical commercial and entirely human-oriented surroundings, and of course a main plot line about those same surroundings gradually deteriorating into a death trap, there is a lot said here about loneliness, love, meaning, need, sacrifice, devotion ... and basically what is superficial in our lives and what isn't.
The film's very final plot device is justified artistically, and quite moving, even if it resembles the beginning in deliberately dodging a number of difficult and complex moral/ethical (and also intellectual) questions. This "less is more" approach is interesting, and all the more so when we note that some moral and intellectual issues ARE addressed in detail here, while others are skimmed over. Since I normally "demand" an entirely cohesive scenario with no plot holes, I surprise myself by noting how much of a virtue the approach taken by "Passsengers" actually turns out to be. It evokes an idea of "Impressionism" that goes a long way to confirming the status of this particular film as a piece of art. It also suggests that the makers are firmly in charge of their film, and know what they want/choose - and do not want/choose - to achieve with it (actually a rarer commodity than it would seem these days, given certain recent, utterly-chaotic sci fi efforts on the big screen also reviewed by me!)
This is then what I personally have been looking and hoping for for some while: sci fi in a spectacular, at times stunning, setting, but with heart and brain alike in very much the right place.