#so we get more glam shots of Snow's pretty face???

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Passengers or Strap in and Enjoy That Stockholm Syndrome

I’m going to start where this film almost does  - with Chris Pratt’s naked bum. 

*Passengers spoilers follow*

Instances of nudity are an interesting, if obviously incomplete, metric for judging gender equality in cinema. Unfortunately, this usually appears in the form of painfully contrived reasons for women to get their kit off while their male counterparts remain fully clothed and presumably more comfortable in the cold vacuum of space. Passengers, however, took me by surprise. The audience is presented with a totally naked rear view of Pratt’s character, Jim, not once, but twice. So later on when Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), begins to strip, apparently down to nothing, out of a glamorous evening dress to put on a spacesuit (which, aside from being a weird thing to do, must be super uncomfortable) I naturally expected her to be put on display. This was not the case. After a brief, tantalising shot of her dress falling to the floor, she is almost immediately incased in the bulky, deeply non-provocative and apparently unisex spacesuit. In a strange way, this almost gives her the sexual power in the scene - she knows what the audience/Jim want and denies them.

The second time I was sure we were being set up for a Barbarella moment was when she has to pull a massive switch to flush the reactor (apologies if that’s not the correct pseudo-scientific term) in order to save the day. Naturally, the nuclear bad-something that is happening is very hot so she has to take her shirt off to wrap around the metal lever in order not to burn herself. I was fully expecting an indulgent visual lingering on how sweaty she was, and maybe some sexy noises of exertion to be thrown in there too. To an extent, these things happen but mostly Aurora just handles that situation then bandages up her injuries like a boss. Also she’s still fairly fully clothed even without her top - no space bras here.

Often nudity is used in cinema to expose a character; to make them vulnerable to someone else in the story or to objectify them in the gaze of the audience. This only seems to be the case for Jim however, as his nudity most often occurs during his period of isolation, emphasising his helplessness and making him the victim of the voyeuristic audience who are intruding on his solitude. Aurora, on the other hand, seems to own her decisions to take her clothes off more, partially because she is never seen as naked as Jim is and also because she does so at moments when she is powerful. Firstly illustrating her sexual control over her relationship with Jim and secondly at a moment when she is not only physically but also emotionally strong, able to prevent the engine disaster as well as make the choice to sacrifice Jim for the sake of the multitude of sleeping souls on the ship.

Another moment that was pleasantly surprising regarding strength was when Aurora discovered that Jim had intentionally woken her up and she decided to enact some retribution. It was very refreshing to see a woman vent her anger at a man not with a cat-fight slap to the face and then dissolve into tears, possibly feebly beating at his pecs, as is so often the case. She properly beats the living shit out of him and you can see the very real effort she exerts to stop herself just short of killing him, which would be somewhat understandable, seeing as, as Aurora so rightly puts it herself, Jim has murdered her by stealing her sleeping years on the ship.

Which brings us to the main problem of this film - it’s portrayed as a love story when really a man has done the unforgivable, robbed a woman of her life and then lied to her about it to control her, but we’re supposed to be okay with this because he’s good looking and he loves her. I’m not saying that this film doesn’t do a good job of portraying a whole spectrum of grey morality. Jim clearly tortures himself over the decision, and we are treated to the rare sight of a man on screen being allowed to express his emotions. There is a close up of his actual tears - not the tears that are usually permitted, such as the tears of macho rage that mix with rain and blood as a man clutches a dead wife and/or daughter to his burly chest, but tears of genuine despair at the abstract emotional concept of perpetual loneliness. Jim is allowed to unashamedly show a range of complex emotions not often aligned with masculinity in cinema, including depression, regret and doubt.

So, this film does make it clear that Jim feels bad about what he has done, which basically just shows that he’s not a sociopath, but the message about Aurora’s emotions is more disturbing. Her initial romantic feelings towards Jim are understandable - he’s attractive and considerate, as well as being for all intents and purposes the last man on Earth. The subsequent feelings of betrayal, rage, violence and then bitter disdain she shows are also very easy to empathise with. Her choice at the end of the film, however, was less so. She has the chance to go back to sleep, get away from the man who was willing to sacrifice her life for his own ends and to carry on with her own plans. Her plans by the way are very cool - to be the first person ever to go to an off-world colony and come back again, not only to write about a new and barely explored planet but then to travel two hundred years into Earth’s future and write about that too. The woman is a visionary. It’s such an interesting idea and would have made her a unique pioneer in this universe, but you know what’s better than that? A heterosexual romance in a quaint little log cabin with a man who has completely emotionally manipulated her and robbed her of this amazing self-determined future. Instead of living her dreams while Jim goes back to being sad by her weird Snow White style future coffin, the audience are supposed to applaud the fact that she has terrible, terrible Stockholm Syndrome. Nothing says “happily ever after” like a formerly headstrong, creative woman becoming entrapped in a psychologically abusive relationship.

Overall, this film had some good moments, and defied my expectations in places, which is always a pleasant surprise. It’s also rare for such a big movie to have such a small cast and I thought it pulled that off very well, adding to the claustrophobic feeling of the whole story. However, all of this is sadly eclipsed by the bad taste the ending leaves in my mouth. Aurora’s decision at the end feels like when your drunk friend wants to go home with someone that you know they’ll regret waking up next to in the morning, except she has to live with this for the rest of her life, and instead of one too many Jagerbombs that she chose to drink being to blame, the emotional manipulation and abuse of another human being is, and she has no control over that whatsoever. This lack of self-determination is what makes Passengers a tragedy for me, and makes the decision to portray it as a love story an unsettling one.

Now for some asides:

What a waste of the supreme acting talents of Laurence Fishburne to have a black character included as a device to give the white heroes a fancy bracelet and then instantly die. Can we just not.

What a treat! A female friend to give context to Aurora as a three dimensional person, to show an example of a healthy relationship and to give weight to Aurora’s decision to leave all of that behind, thus making Jim’s robbery of her future even worse. Oh wait, never mind. She’s just saying that you need a man to be happy.

The swimming pool gravity failure scene was very well done (visually, if not necessarily scientifically) and will probably be a regular feature in my own panic dreams from now on. If you’ve got to go though, drowning in a floating bubble from an opulent future infinity pool wearing your white space bikini is a glam way to pop your clogs. If Lana Del Rey is still writing songs in two hundred years, I’m pretty sure there’ll be one about that.

Aurora and Jim will have definitely eaten all the gold breakfasts by the time everyone else is awake. Can’t wait to see the looks on those rich suckaz faces when they have to eat ready brek instead.