Stowaway, the latest movie about space travel on Netflix, I Feel should be more appropriately titled,  “the Impossible Choice.” Sometimes titles can be a little misleading. Even though this film does center around a stowaway on a space mission, it’s not so much about the stowaway as it is about the choices the astronauts are going to make regarding survival. This film is more about a character study than it is about space travel, the same danger and choices that human beings would have to make to survive when facing dwindling resources could be played out in any survival story. But with the popularity of space travel movies, it seems almost perfect to tell this kind of story against the backdrop of space. Starring Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim, and Anna Kendrick, stowaway is a great movie about the human condition. It may not be the best movie ever regarding space travel, but if you’re looking for a film that takes an honest look at humans and what they’re willing to do to survive, then this is it.

I’m not going to say that it’s a great film, there are far better movies regarding space travel and in fact when it comes to Netflix, the show “Away” starring Hilary Swank had a much better story. But I definitely enjoyed this film for what it is. The performances by the actors are fantastic. They’re raw and their honest and I feel that this would be very true if real astronauts were put into the situation that the characters are in. The story is about three astronauts on a mission to Mars who discover an engineer or a stowaway. They can’t turn back and drop him off and they don’t have enough resources for astronauts, barely enough for three. So what do you do? What are you willing to do to survive and ensure that the mission is a success? Are you willing to kill one person so that everybody else can survive including the mission? These are the questions that these astronauts have to ask. So it makes it an interesting character study. Anna Kendrick has never been in a space movie before and I felt like she had the most honest performance regarding an astronaut having to make an impossible choice.

Her character is the one that struggles most with her humanity towards the stowaway that she may or may not have affections for. I think this is one of the most grown-up performances she’s done. The performances that we know her from, she is playing a young character, sometimes immature and not knowing how life really works. Her performance in this movie is very different. You know that you’re going to get a great performance from Toni Collette and Daniel Dae Kim because they’re both incredible actors. And the reason I talk about performances is this movie is driven by the performances of the actors You can almost have written this as a very intimate play about space travel. But what makes this film incredible are the raw and honest performances. Raw and honest performances.

But there are a few things that make this film less than perfect. It has some problems with pacing. While I understand that the film is about character study when trying to survive, there are moments that drag on too much, especially your characters wallow in their own indecision. Moments like these can be nice when you examine the raw honesty in your characters, but I think the camera lingers too long on some of this instead of focusing on trying to solve the overall problem when it comes to survival. After all, this is a survival movie and about the choices they make so you can’t ignore too much of the problem-solving aspects. It should be a fair balance of characters dealing with their choices while also trying to solve the problem. That’s where the pacing is a little off. Another big issue is these lingering scenes of trying to solve the problem like you’re in real-time. It may be taking hours to complete a task for the character, but shouldn’t feel like it’s taking hours when watching this movie. Sometimes I felt like the director and the editor couldn’t make up their mind about what kind of film they wanted to make. Is this a space survival movie or complete study of the human condition when faced with survival? The answer is it should be both, and it has to be balanced and I don’t always feel like they accomplish that which can make the movie feel longer than it should be. The last thing I have a gripe about regarding this film is the use of voiceovers. There is a really nice voice-over that sums up everything at the end of this film, but it doesn’t feel personal when it should be. We just hear a character speaking on why they joined the program. But it’s supposed to be this personal moment that brings everything together for this character after dealing with all those impossible choices they had to make. The voice-over is nice, but to make it more personal, shouldn’t we have seen a scene of this character talking to a video diary. Even just a brief scene so we know why they are saying these things instead of wondering if we’re hearing their subconscious. My point is it doesn’t feel as personal as it could be with this voice over and that’s a shame because it was well written. Maybe it seemed more personal on the script then how it played out in the film.

Overall Stowaway is a good movie. It is absolutely worth watching on Netflix. It almost feels like a perfect Netflix film, although I would have really enjoyed seeing this on the big screen so you could feel the full effect of a space travel movie. Good space movies should be seen on a big screen. The film is not perfect and sometimes it feels like if it’s dragging, but the performances by the four actors in This film are incredible and you really feel for their plight. Their performances will make you ask your own questions on what you’re willing to do in order to survive. And any movie that can put you right in the place of the characters and feel their pain and self-doubt is a good film. It may not be the best film regarding space travel or survival, but the performances are worth watching because it’s like you’re getting a clinic in great acting. Stowaway is a good 7 and definitely something you should watch on Netflix this weekend. You won’t be disappointed!