Spaceman review: Adam Sandler's Netflix drama fails to achieve liftoff

There are more nuanced and no doubt just as accurate ways of describing Spaceman than “the Adam Sandler Netflix flick where the actor talks with a giant spider about loneliness for close to two hours.” In the end, though, such a logline is arguably a fitting way to describe Johan Renck’s dour, self-serious adaptation of Jaroslav Kalfař’s philosophically minded novel, Spaceman Of Bohemia. And while others may find in this visually arresting outer space drama a probing meditation on grief and marriage (not to mention human alienation writ-large), I never did warm up to this Colby Day-penned character study, finding it much too caught up in its own ambitions to make its emotional beats pay off.

Early on in Spaceman, we’re offered the central thesis of the film in the most blunt of terms: during a press conference, Jakub (Sandler) is asked point blank by a Czech teenager whether he’s the loneliest man in the world. Isabella Rossellini’s Commissioner Tuma tries to somewhat reword the question; if nothing else, as Jakub further inches near Jupiter where he’s tasked with examining an odd lilac-colored galaxy-looking cloud that suddenly appeared four years ago, he’s arguably the human most removed from any other person in the entire galaxy. He may not be lonely. But he’s most definitely alone. Except, of course, Day’s script wants us to keep that notion of loneliness at the forefront of how we understand Jakub, who’s clearly struggling with his months-long solo expedition. He’s missing his wife (Carey Mulligan’s Lenka) and now spends his days reminiscing about what he really left behind and what he may not find waiting for him when he returns.

But Jakub isn’t so alone after all. No sooner has Renck hit us over the head with the notion that this brave astronaut may be struggling to stay awake and alert as he approaches the “Chopra Cloud” than we’re greeted with the key other figure at the heart of Spaceman: Hanuš, a giant spider alien being who’s hitched a ride on Jakub’s spaceship and is now intent on helping this “skinny human” with the emotional turmoil this increasingly perilous mission will unleash. Hanuš is voiced by Paul Dano. And so, despite appearing like a terrifying creature from a B-horror flick (or something out of a Harry Potter flick or Tolkien’s lore, even), Hanuš comes across like a world-weary and wise ancient creature whose drone-like, if warmly monotone voice, eventually thaws Jakub’s initial shock at finding such a being inside his spaceship.

As Hanuš tells Jakub, he’s on the ship because Jakub’s loneliness intrigued him. And he’s there now to assist him in Jakub’s emotional distress. What this means is that Hanuš plunges his new friend deep into his most upsetting memories, including the many petty fights that are driving (as we know, but Jakub doesn’t) Lenka to finally leave him. In this sense, Hanuš is nothing more than a neat narrative device, a manifestation of Jakub’s frail and fearsome subconscious who keeps trying to quiet his anxieties over having left a pregnant wife behind in favor of a banner mission to explore what could hold the key to the very existence of the universe, its origin, even.