‘This is a much more complex ecosystem than we previously estimated,” says one of the astronauts of “Europa Report” in a wonderfully geeky bit of understatement.
But there are no torso-bursting aliens in this eerily quiet indie; director Sebastián Cordero takes a low-key, science-based approach to his drama about a manned international mission to Jupiter’s frozen moon.
An obviously shaken Dr. Samantha Unger (Embeth Davidtz) narrates pieced-together footage recovered from Europa One, a privately funded ship that never returned from a research trip to look for water — and possibly life — under Europa’s crust.
The excitement among the six astronauts (Christian Camargo, Anamaria Marinca, Michael Nyqvist, Daniel Wu, Karolina Wydra and Sharlto Copley) is palpable in the early months — it takes over a year just to reach Europa — but the mission goes off the rails long before touching down on the far-off moon.
When they do reach their destination, they glimpse and feel strange things happening outside, on what’s supposedly just an icy rock. Dedicated professionals all, they marshal a steely resolve to “look at the diagnostics” and get on with the research — the scientific equivalent of going down into the dark, spooky basement anyway.
By the time Wydra’s optimistic botanist dons her spacesuit to venture outside for specimen-gathering, your gut will be screaming the familiar “Don’t go out there!” horror movie refrain.
But the real treat here is the science, not the fiction. The film’s sleek aesthetic was developed in consultation with NASA about what such a mission would actually require, and look like as viewed on surveillance cameras. Mission footage is interspersed with documentary-style interviews with the astronauts, detailing their reasons for wanting to go.
As the cameras begin to malfunction, the film is frequently interrupted by static interference. Unlike many found-footage movies, I didn’t find the technique irritating; in this case, it heightens your sense of dread — and admiration — for humans who knowingly put their lives into the mechanical hands of imperfect technology, and journey forth into the great unknown.