The crew of MTS-42, a two-year mission to Mars, consists of Mission Commander Marina Barnett, biologist David Kim, and medical researcher Zoe Levenson.
Shortly after takeoff, Barnett discovers launch support engineer Michael Adams, an accidental stowaway, unconscious between two modules. Adams's unconscious body is entangled with a device that scrubs carbon dioxide from the air on the ship. As he falls, the device is inadvertently destroyed.
The crew is forced to use emergency chemical canisters to scrub CO2 from the air. Unfortunately, this is at best a temporary measure. Without another oxygen supply, the crew of four will asphyxiate weeks before reaching Mars. Thus begins the desperate search to try and find an alternative to the unthinkable: asking Adams to sacrifice his life for the crew.
As a film, Stowaway understands its main strength - a fantastic cast - and plays to this heavily by giving them plenty of dramatic situations to deal with, and lots of intense conversations to have about those situations.
On the other hand, the script does seem like one with a limited range of appeal. It relies a lot on contrivance to set up its situation, for one thing. Also, it takes very much a slow and introspective approach to laying out the story; audiences looking for a grand space adventure are destined to be disappointed. Finally, it's ultimately a film about the sacrifices people are willing to make, and why. That is a noble but melancholy topic, and easy to get wrong.
Ultimately, I think Stowaway goes slightly off-course. Its cast are all excellent, but even they can't quite land the emotional punch the script is looking for. I blame this on the script and direction, which is very measured and methodical. Despite the cast's best efforts, at the end of the picture, I was left feeling a little bit "Is that it?".
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