Night Sky Review: The More Introspective Side Of Science Fiction Resembles Magical Realism on Amazon Prime Video Series

Starring: Sissy Spacek, J.K. Simmons, Chai Hansen

Director: Juan José, Campanella

Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video (click to watch)

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

With a title so vague as to seem like a Discovery documentary Night Sky is instead one of the most interesting adult sci-fi attempts in recent years. The TV series produced by Legendary Television and Amazon Studios, available on Prime Video from May 20, 2022, stars Oscar winners JK Simmons and Sissy Spacek in an adventure that looks to space but reflects on much closer things, such as failure. of the sense of wonder when the years go by, the wounds get worse, and nothing moves as before.

The two protagonists play the role of a couple who have been married for many years and hide a secret in their garage, a mystery that unites them but at the same time allows them to escape from a reality where they no longer want to stay. Night Sky plays with the dictates of sci-fi not to build a new universe, but to delve into the human soul by analyzing themes such as love, mental health, and the fear of aging.

Night Sky Review: The Story

Irene and Franklin met one night in a pub, between them there is the classic love at first sight that will last for years. When Night Sky begins, the two have been married for many years and live in a small Illinois town leading a normal life, marked by their little habits. Among these, however, there is a very particular one. The two hide from the eyes of the rest of the city, in the shed in their garden, a room that directly faces an unknown planet.

Most of their evenings are spent in a living room overlooking rocky, desert, and alien terrain. The two have hidden the discovery from their loved ones for decades, but the arrival of Jude (Chai Hansen) compromises their balance. Meanwhile, in Argentina, Stella and her daughter Toni live in a house lost in nowhere if it were not for a street and a small church. The relationship between the two is troubled mainly because Toni, just fifteen, would like more freedom and explore the world rather than being boundless there. But Stella has secrets that she isn’t ready to share.

Night Sky Review And Analysis

The science-fiction element fits naturally into the narrative blending perfectly with the everyday life of Irene and Franklin, an everyday life created by small things: breakfast consumed together at the kitchen table, taking medicines while talking about in the calm rhythm outlined from medical visits, and hobbies. A naturalness that shapes the TV series following the dictates of magical realism, rather than a sci-fi the most common. Night Sky exploits the genre in a new way, exposing human frailty in a world we already know, rather than building a new one. It’s not uncommon for sci-fi to build new narrative universes that are governed by rules that you must get used to before getting into the action. Night Sky, on the other hand, is based on a balance that is already known, consisting of a normal and simple life, dampened only by a more action subplot.

Just as how the science fiction element is treated is, the choice of having as protagonists a couple who have known each other for a lifetime is equally unusual. Irene and Franklin support each other, care for each other, and have years of marriage behind them that have strengthened their bond. But under the guise of their quiet life, Night Sky delves deep into themes such as love, fear of aging and loneliness, and mental health, and describes the best and worst sides of a lasting marriage.

Irene and Franklin go in search of inner peace along two different paths, but both escape from reality. Irene is fascinated by the room that overlooks that unexplored planet, she loves being in that second living room, watching from the window. Franklin does not share that fascination, he prefers to take refuge in the memories of when he and Irene met, or when they were newlyweds.

Night Sky proceeds slowly, taking all the time to insert step by step small details and narrative structures that will explode only in the final installments. A slowness that is interrupted by Stella and her daughter Toni who live in an isolated house in Argentina and whose secrets and the mission they must carry out constitutes the action-packed storyline of the series. And it is precisely in those moments that Night Sky loses its appeal to the public.

The clear intention of the showrunners is to create a multifaceted series, but with a pace that goes from the calmest and most introspective, about the human relationships and fears that seize an elderly couple, to the fastest when the story moves to unravel the mystery. But this hoped-for pace never happens due to some minor subplots that soon become boring. Night Sky is a long series, whose slowness would not be a fault if it were limited to being an atypical sci-fi-like Black Mirror (one of the most optimistic episodes of Black Mirror, specifically) or Solos.

The relationship between Toni and her mother Stella should counterbalance that between Irene and Franklin, but it lacks the right bite. The mother-daughter relationship is one of the most abused, where the teenage daughter is portrayed as capricious while the mother is only a woman full of secrets she does not want to reveal. This imbalance is also increasingly emphasized by the skill of JK Simmons and Sissy Spacek who play Franklin and Irene respectively. The two have perfect chemistry, their acting reflects the lifestyle of the couple, but their characters work very well even alone.

Night Sky Review: The Last Words

The union between science fiction and action is certainly a prolific encounter and, often, it represents a marriage of love. But Night Sky points to a more introspective cut where the slowness of the episodes corresponds to the peaceful flow of the lives of Franklin and Irene, where the isolated town is the backdrop to a love story where magical realism could have been the only element of interest, if well exploited. Beyond everything, Night Sky remains, even with its flaws, an interesting and unusual television product right from the choice of the protagonist couple.