November 09th, 2025

Spaceman: A Czech Cosmonaut, a Magical Nutella-Eating Spider, and a Purple Cloud of Interstellar Matter

Spaceman (2024)
Directed by Johan Renck
Written by Colby Day
Starring Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, and Kunal Nayyar
Spaceman ** ½
I should have known as soon as I discovered that the cloud of interstellar dust particles was named “Chopra,” that this movie would not be real science fiction. Guru Deepak Chopra, after all, is the person most responsible for confusing the issue when it comes to non-Newtonian physics. Instead of trying to reckon with its complexity, he dumbed its mysteries down into a philosophy of “manifesting one’s will through visualization.” Or mind over matter, rather than mind’s interaction with matter.
In a way, Spaceman is basically a numinous negro story, only instead of a negro we get an alien. And instead of Bagger Vance showing up on the links to help a white man, we get a spiderlike creature showing up in space to help a human.
It stars Adam Sandler as Jacob Prochazka, a Czech astronaut (though they still say “cosmonaut” in formerly communist countries) on a strange mission. He has been sent to investigate the origin and nature of a cloud of interstellar dust radiating purple light over the Earth. One would think that an unmanned mission would be safer, or that processes like gravitational lensing and spectral analysis were now advanced enough to investigate the cloud from afar. After all, the dangers to the crew on a manned mission would be significant, especially if the cloud were radioactive enough for its rays to break through a vessel’s shielding.
Thankfully, though, Spaceman, despite its title, is not really a science fiction movie, and so it isn’t really concerned with such granular details.
Prochazka has been alone, and in space now for several months, and though he is nearing his destination, he is cracking under the strain. He maintains two links to Earth to keep himself from getting too lonely. One is to a standard mission control setup. That allows him to talk to the mission’s planners, investors, and children curious about what it’s like to be in space for so long. Cosmonaut Prochazka goes through the motions in these meetings, clearly uncomfortable talking to a roomful of people after months of solitude amidship. There’s even a hint of self-loathing in those moments where he has to give shoutouts to the mission’s various sponsors.
His other link is the more intriguing one, and also the one more vital to him. It is a device that uses the principle of quantum entanglement to allow him to talk to his wife without experiencing any day. The device isn’t explained in any detail, but that’s okay since we’re in the future and the people using it likely take its to-us magical nature for granted.
These meetings are especially important to Jacob since his wife is very pregnant with his child, and there are longstanding and unresolved tensions that exist between them. She wants him to pay more attention to her, and the time they have together, while his mind remains beyond Jupiter. It is suggested that his lack of concern may have contributed to the stress that led to his wife’s previous miscarriage. One day, though, Prochazka’s wife Lenka (ably played by Carey Mulligan) doesn’t show up for their chat at the appointed hour.
It turns out that she can no longer take being married to a man who is married to his work, and is also more interested in himself than anyone else. She wants to tell him it’s over, but the people behind the mission don’t think that’s a good idea. Wait until he’s finished exploring the cloud, the Commissioner, played by Isabella Rossellini, urges. Despite doing my best to see things from Lenka’s perspective, I found myself concurring with the Commissioner. If your husband is only a few days away from making a discovery that could alter the fate of humanity and maybe the universe, maybe put the mission first? I suppose, though, this may make me a misogynist in the eyes of some.
Rather than let Jacob hear Lena’s kiss-off, the Commish decides to stall, first citing problems with the QE machine, then Lena’s being out of town. Jacob suspects something is wrong, but soon he has bigger problems. A giant spiderlike creature capable of speech (or its telepathic equivalent) is cohabitating the ship with him. He tries to quarantine it, then kill it via release of decontamination spray, but nothing works.
At last he realizes the spider only wants to probe his mind and memories in order to understand humanity. That, at least, is what it says. What it really wants to do is help Jacob see the error of his ways, understand how selfish he’s been, and what he owes his beleaguered wife stranded on Earth.
I liked this story better when it was called A Christmas Story, and the least the FX crew could have done is deck the spider out with some Jacob Marley chains. Repent, Spaceman Prochazka, before it is too late!
Like Arrival—a much better made, but still ultimately mawkish affair—this isn’t a movie about the wonders of encountering alien entities. It’s about how encountering alien entities makes us more human, make us more caring and thoughtful. Real aliens would more probably be interested in dissecting our corpses (or even more horrifying, vivisecting us.) But these aliens are basically just interstellar therapists. The Spaceman could have solved his problems much easier, and much more cheaply, by paying a shrink to sit him down on the couch.
Like Arrival, Spaceman also features lots of stirring, manipulative musical cues by Max Richter and Malick-esque whispering between characters caressing each other with their loving words.
In case you can’t already guess, I hate this shit, and find it insufferably false.
That said, none of what doesn’t work in this film is the fault of Adam Sandler. There’s no point this late in his career spilling ink (or wasting keystrokes) expressing shock that he can actually act. Punch-Drunk Love proved he was a talented dramatic performer, as have myriad other roles since then. Uncut Gems not only solidified the impression, but showed he was capable of actual onscreen greatness.
Here he does a beautiful job here of presenting a man who is tired and lonely to the point where it registers in his every expression. A genuine and ancient suffering seems to claim the Spaceman’s features, the bags under his eyes almost deep enough to look like scars. He smartly doesn’t even attempt a Czech accent, but still somehow gets across that he is a man from a place that is not America. It’s in how believable he looks and sounds when talking about his father, a former communist functionary who did terrible things in his spirit of true belief. Or in those scenes where he recalls running across beautiful green fields and through woods in the countryside outside Prague. Or in his vision where he imagines himself kissing a water nymph from Czech mythology, knowing her kiss will kill him but consequences be damned.
The design on the giant spider is also very good, and despite it being CGI, it is mostly convincing. I would say I have a normal amount of arachnophobia, and thus found myself surprised by how cute I found its change in expressions. And of course, as a binge eater with a sweet tooth, I practically fell in love with him (it?) when I discovered his love for Nutella. Paul Dano also does a good job voicing the spider, expressing curiousness as well as wisdom, making the creature sound as long-lived as it claims to be.
Also, unlike in a lot of nominally science fiction films, the ship actually looks real, too. Most of the equipment is sheathed in ruggedized casing, and lots of the controls and buttons appear to be real holdovers from the Soviet era. There are plenty of scenes in which Prochazka navigates from room to room and none of it feels stagey or like a set. His zero g spins through the space do not appear to be mere camera trickery, but instead a probe through a cramped, albeit three-dimensional space. The cloud itself is also impressive, a luminous explosion of elements and debris supposedly leftover from the Big Bang. How it got from its starting place some thirteen billion years back in time and space is another matter (maybe that Einsteinian “spooky action at a distance” again.) Regardless, it is a marvel to look at, and there is a genuine emotional charge the moment the Spaceman and the Spider make their final approach.
It sort of makes me want to go and find the source material, a book called Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar, see what got lost in the transition from page to screen. Because the movie, for all its faults, definitely has its moments, and will no doubt find its fans and defenders.
 
 
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