U are the Universe

Original title: ТИ - КОСМОС

Directed by: Pavlo Ostrikov

Country: Ukraine

Length: 101 min.

Year: 2024

Premiere: Toronto International Film Festival 2024

Synopsis: in a future where nuclear waste is dumped on the moons of Jupiter, a lonely spaceman with this task tries to find a connection after a sudden catastrophe hits Earth.

RATING: 3.5/5

REVIEW

U are the Universe is the expression of a genre that rarely sees the light of a screening room outside the largest industries, and that alone already makes it a curiosity. It is no guarantee that for a science fiction however to be interesting enough on its own, even if this film somewhat manages in that department aswell.

With Science Fiction being so codified in tropes belonging to american cinema, it is no wonder that Pavlo Ostrikov chooses to reference some of them, heavily: Moon by Duncan Jones is a quasi template of the whole setup of the film, which also sees a lonely employee of a multinational company paired with an AI computer - the design of MAX seems itself derivative of GERTY aswell. There is a different direction taken for the cybercharacter here though, with MAX being more openly ambigious and antagonising at times, although his arc feels more confusing than appealing, and any point the film wants to make about AI in contemporary society is too shallow and distant.

On the rest of the storyline, U are the Universe takes a very unique direction on narratives that have been already seen. At its heart it is a love story of sorts, an aspect where preponderantly the film returns on trying to make a point on the hyperconnectivity of society perhaps, this time leaving its mark more successfully. The brave and impactful ending is what makes it clearest that this is not a hollywood blockbuster.

What really remains the main issue of U are the Universe, is that no matter how its storyline is unique, it looks and feels like many counterparts of other countries, even with its very own form of melancholic storyline. The spaceship ambients are nothing unseen before, the VFX, even the stylistic choices - despite having such a talented cinematographer like Nikita Kuzmenko, who has proven his worth in Pamfir and mroe recently in Under the Volcano - it feels like a film that rather than trying to create its own language, it chooses to conform.

In all, U are the Universe opens a crack on a door: it is a demonstration that science fiction can be made outside an anglophone sphere, even if the film itself could have been braver in estabilishing not just an alternative substance, but also an alternative form.