Life (2017) | Film Review

When I was a kid I had two hamsters. I started with one, and after I pulled the “but she is lonely and needs a friend!” routine, I ended up getting a second one. That second hamster escaped. It was missing for weeks, though we saw signs of it throughout the house, such as stuff being half eaten and moved from one place to another. We occasionally heard scratching the walls, weird noises in general. One day we heard a bottle rolling and clinking from side to side at the bottom of the pantry and there it …. well, there HE (the fact that the little guy turned out to be male was a surprise) was and I put him back in the aquarium with my first hamster, and not too long after that we were waist deep in a hamster colony threatening to eat my entire monthly allowance. The situation was dire. This was my childhood version of Life.

Six astronauts aboard the International Space Station study a sample collected from Mars that could provide evidence of life outside of Earth. They do, in fact, find a large single-celled organism that is proof of life on the red planet, and this is where things begin to go very wrong. Soon, the organism grows to be a sizable creature with an insatiable appetite and more brains than the crew knows what to do with. You can see why I was reminded of the hamster right? Take away space, living on a space station, most of science and it’s the same story.

What I found most interesting about Life was in the first 10 to 15 minutes. You, the viewer, watch everything from behind the cast. You are very much a voyeur into their life, they aren’t acting out a scene, they aren’t putting on a show. You are just watching them go about their business with little care or interest for letting you in on their activity. I’ve had a lot of questions as to why take this approach. Was it designed to point the viewer at the moment when everyone’s life changed? Was it designed to create a barrier between the viewer and the cast? Was it designed to set the viewer on edge and start the movie off with a feeling of unease? If any of these were their intention then it worked for me. I was oddly fascinated with the one bright spot on the screen. I couldn’t connect with the characters and – in what was seemingly an innocent scene – this approach made me feel uneasy and isolated.

Life doesn’t bother with giving the audience exposition, it doesn’t lay a groundwork for anything greater, it just happens. We as viewers are so used to looking at a movie genre and categorize it by comparing it to any of the movies it may look like from the past. However, the movie dares you to stop worrying and just let it be its own thing. It’s honestly refreshing to let the movie happen. It’s no wonder that the writing shines so well with this film, as its cast is full of seasoned veterans who know what their job is and how to tell the story. No one person in the cast is treated any more precious than the other.

Ever watch something fully aware of the surroundings and it distracts you? Happens to me all the time. Especially when a movie takes place in space. What’s funny here is that it all became incidental. The production didn’t distract from the story. Sure, you have your characters floating about a compartment but it feels trivial, not at all special, like we all have been there. Sure, this is typically something that should wow you, dazzle you, but when a production is busy patting themselves on the back for how clever they were in execution, the story tends to suffer. This team added to the story and did not take anything away.

It’s great when a movie like Life comes around. You can spend some time trying to compare it to other films that it may or may not be like, but to do so would only serve to rob it of its uniqueness. What is unique about this movie is that it doesn’t bother with trying to be Alien meets Gravity, or The Blob meets the Martian. It stands on its own and just tells you this one story.

Life just happens.