In the fall of 2015, we were inundated with advertising telling us to “Bring him home.” This was accompanied by images of Matt Damon wearing a space helmet that was reflecting a dusty red landscape that could only be Mars. At this time, and to a degree still, the world was getting obsessed with the idea of sending manned missions to Mars, so a film tackling this concept was trendy. The catchphrase “Bring him home” told us that this would be a film about a rescue mission. “Directed by Ridley Scott” meant that it would be a spectacle film but not necessarily a good one. After all, Ridley Scott is a director that produces films that are big and showy but are just as likely to be misses as hits, yet when he does miss, it is often an interesting miss.
What the film ended up being was akin to Byron Haskin’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars, minus the alien invasion. It’s essentially a story about survival and rescue. On top of the B-movie aspects, it also shares some of its DNA with Cast Away, especially the lone man finding a way to survive on his own aspect. Because of that, Matt Damon, as did Tom Hanks before him, has to do most of his acting on his own with no one to bounce off of. And just like Tom Hanks, Matt Damon was nominated for an Oscar and lost. As deserving as Damon is in this, Leonardo DiCaprio had been overlooked his whole career and was given the award that year for The Revenant, whether that performance specifically merited the win or not.
The story is fairly straightforward. The year is 2035, and the crew of the Ares III is exploring the Acidalia Planitia on the surface of Mars. A severe dust storm, however, cuts the mission short, and the crew is forced to evacuate. Unfortunately, during the evacuation, Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by flying debris and presumed dead. In the face of imminent peril, the remaining crew, led by mission commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), return to their orbiting vessel, the Hermes, and depart for a return trip back to Earth. Watney awakens after the storm, wounded but very much alive. With no way to escape the red planet and no obvious ways to communicate with anyone, he sets about finding a way to survive instead.
As his specialty is botany, he sets about finding a way to expand his existing supply of food. This comes in the form of utilizing the few potatoes he has, alongside the natural fertilizer from the waste processing system and some homemade water, to grow more potatoes. He also figures out a way to make simple communications with NASA back at home, where they have already held a public eulogy for him. When news comes out that he is still alive, it becomes a race to figure out how best to address the situation, with plans that range from a supply drop to a dangerous and time-consuming plan to use the Hermes, already well on its way back home, to use Earth’s gravity to slingshot around and return to Mars to retrieve their lost man. NASA, led by Administrator Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), elects not to risk the crew of the Hermes and add another year-plus to their already extensive time off planet. But when the crew of the Hermes learns of the potential rescue plan, they unanimously choose to ignore NASA’s orders and go back for Mark anyway.
This is a story about the goodness and determination of humankind to band together in times of need. At one point, NASA’s supply ship, their initial attempt to aid Mark Watney, explodes upon launch because the mission had to be rushed. China steps in, offering the use of their Taiyang Shen launcher to resupply Watney. This kind of international cooperation is presented in a realistic fashion that is far more optimistic than the world we currently live in. It posits that when a single human life is in danger, nations can set aside their distrust and band together to save him. It does, however, date the film a little as this was a time in Hollywood when they were pandering to the Chinese government in a desperate attempt to get films shown in that country. By including China specifically in the rescue attempt it opened the film up to all those millions of Chinese viewers.
There is a lot of science on display in this film. Ridley Scott and, more importantly, his screenwriter, Drew Goddard, have distilled things down to a level that makes it all palpable without talking down to their audience. There is the occasional moment where a character is explaining things to another character that wouldn’t need it explained to them; this is a trope of all movies to get exposition across to the audience. But it is never on the level of insulting the audience’s intelligence. We may not understand all the techno-babble, but we get enough of it to follow along. We get explanations as to why things work the way they do, and as far as I could tell, there was no cheating or magical deus ex machina used to save the day.
Mark represents the human spirit and its determination to survive. But while he starts out optimistic, he is human after all and susceptible to bouts of depression, frustration, and anger. Who wouldn’t be? This film is PG-13 and thus cannot express the kind of language most of us would be using in the face of such hopelessness, but it finds a way to get that across that is both realistic and humorous at the same time. These little moments make him more recognizable to us as a realistic, three dimensional, person, even if his situation is more fantastical than anything any of us will ever experience.
But even though this situation is fantastical, it is still within the realm of realism. By setting this film in the near future, it feels like a situation that could, within our lifetimes, actually happen. On top of that, even though it is on a different planet, much of what happens could be transposed to a deserted isle without much change. That comparison, coupled with some truly impressive production values, elevates this film and adds a level of realism that other science fiction films lack.
If there is a downside to this film, it is that the secondary characters get shorted in order to keep the bulk of the focus on Mark. We get little time with the crew of the Hermes aside from observations Mark makes about them in their absence. And most of those observations are reserved for Commander Lewis. The rest of the crew, while populated by some well-known performers, are given nothing much to do to stand out from each other. The same can be said about the people at NASA who are functional but nothing much more. One character, Hermes flight director Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), seems to be there just so that Ridley Scott can make a Lord of the Rings joke.
The Martian is about the triumph of the human spirit. Even at well over two hours in length, it is fleeting and never feels like it is dragging along. It may not have a whole lot of action, but that doesn’t keep it from being interesting and entertaining. I would jokingly refer to this as The Feel-Good Movie of the Year, but that is actually an apt description. So much goes wrong here, and yet Mark Watney manages to survive it all and make it home. This film is fun to watch, well made, and proof that, with the right material, Ridley Scott can still make an amazing picture.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer, and Mark Huffam
Best Actor: Matt Damon
Best Adapted Screenplay: Drew Goddard
Best Production Design: Arthur Max and Celia Bobak
Best Sound Editing: Oliver Tarney
Best Sound Mixing: Paul Massey, Mark Taylor, and Mac Ruth
Best Visual Effects: Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence, and Steven Warner
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Release Date: October 2, 2015
Running Time: 142 Minutes
Rated PG-13
Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, and Chiwetel Ejiofor
Directed By: Ridley Scott
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