Ridley Scott‘s best movies have managed to be simultaneously suspenseful, thoughtful and impeccably executed, and you can now add “The Martian” to a list that includes “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” “Black Hawk Down” and the Oscar-winning “Gladiator.”
His new film premiered on Friday night at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it screened in the huge Roy Thomson Hall to an audience that took it to heart when Scott introduced the film by saying, “It’s OK to laugh.”
In fact, it’s not just OK to laugh at “The Martian” – it’s all but mandatory. The story of an astronaut who’s left by himself on Mars when his fellow crew members think he’s dead may not sound like the stuff of levity, but Scott has a light touch with the material.
And as played by Matt Damon, the stranded astronaut leaving a video record happens to be a born comic, as well as an ace botanist and creative thinker who’s able, as he says at one point, to “science the s— out of this.” In doing so, Damon turns what seems like a death sentence into a survival tale.
The story is divided between Damon’s resourcefulness in staying alive on Mars – using the astronauts’, um, waste to grow potatoes in the inhospitable Martian atmosphere is only one good idea. The efforts of NASA to figure out how to rescue him when they realize he’s alive is the other half.
The crew members who left Damon behind also figure into the story, and it’s a measure of the film’s effectiveness that the rescue mission isn’t any less exciting just because we’ve known it was coming since the first half hour of the film.
Scott remains a kinetic, charged filmmaker with impeccable tech credentials. This isn’t a technical tour de force like “Gravity” was, but it is an exciting piece of adrenalized filmmaking. The key with “The Martian,” though, lies in a large cast that makes just about every person onscreen interesting.
It’s possible that the popcorn-movie pleasures of “The Martian” will work against it when awards time rolls around, with some voters perhaps opting for more overtly serious works. But Scott (working from the popular novel by Andy Weir) does have some serious things on his mind here, crafting a tale whose heroes use brainpower rather than brute strength to overcome impossible obstacles.
This is a love letter to science and to international cooperation and to all sorts of Utopian things you don’t usually find in the work of the man who made “Blade Runner” and “Alien.”
At any rate, it’s hard to deny filmmaking this adept and this thrilling, whether or not it puts any more gold on Scott’s shelves.
19 Must-See Movies at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival (Photos)
With 289 features playing at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, picking favorites can be impossible. But here are some on TheWrap's to-do list
Courtesy of TIFF
"Trumbo"
Director Jay Roach has found a niche in political movies for HBO, and here he tackles the Hollywood blacklist with Bryan Cranston as banned author and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as powerful gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.
Groundswell Productions
"I Saw the Light"
British actor Tom Hiddleston has the lean, haunted look to play country music icon Hank Williams, but can he nail the voice in Marc Abraham’s biopic?
Sony Pictures Classics
"Where to Invade Next"
Michael Moore hasn’t made a documentary since "Capitalism, a Love Story" six years ago, but the current political climate seems ready-made for his fiery and funny approach.
Dog Eat Dog Films
"Spotlight"
With its top-notch ensemble cast including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams, director Tom McCarthy’s journalism procedural wowed audiences in Venice and Telluride with its depiction of a team of Boston Globe reporters uncovering the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal.
Anonymous Content
"Beasts of No Nation"
It’s reportedly hard to watch, but Cary Fukanaga’s child-soldier drama has early critics throwing around comparisons to "Apocalypse Now."
Red Crown Productions
"Freeheld"
Peter Sollett’s timely true story of a lesbian couple in New Jersey who went to court to fight for pension rights stars Julianne Moore and Ellen Page, a formidable team.
Double Feature Films
"Every Thing Will Be Fine"
After he made the brilliant 3D dance documentary "Pina," German director Wim Wenders said he was going to make an intimate 3D drama – and the result is this film, which stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rachel McAdams and James Franco, who apparently must by law have at least one film in every film festival.
IFC Films
"The Martian"
Is Ridley Scott’s space odyssey a popcorn movie, or a true awards contender? TIFF audiences will be the first to decide.
Twentieth Century Fox
"Room"
The buzz out of Telluride is that 8-year-old Jacob Tremblay is a revelation, and maybe an awards contender, for his role in Lenny Abrahamson’s dark drama about a boy raised inside a small room where he and his mother (Brie Larson) are imprisoned.
Reactions from Venice and Telluride say the violence is brutal but Johnny Depp is great (and a strong Oscar contender) as mobster Whitey Bulger, making Scott Cooper’s drama a hot ticket.
Warner Bros
"Un Plus Une"
French director Claude Lelouch, best-known for his 1996 film "A Man and a Woman," is working with "The Artist" star (and Oscar winner) Jean Dujardin in a story about a film composer finding love on a trip to India.
Les Films 13
"Anomalisa"
Charlie Kaufman, the writer of "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," made his directorial debut with the thorny "Synecdoche, New York" seven years ago, and his second film (a collaboration with Duke Johnson) is a stop-motion animation production that sounds just as odd and intriguing as his past work.
Front Row Filmed Entertainment
"The Program"
On the heels of the Oscar-nominated "Philomena," director Stephen Frears turns his sights to the Lance Armstrong saga, with Ben Foster as the disgraced cyclist.
StudioCanal
"Stonewall"
Roland Emmerich, the director best known for disaster epics like "Independence Day," gets serious and intimate with the story of the game-changing 1969 New York City riots that helped launch the gay rights movement.
Roadside Attractions
"Heart of a Dog"
Laurie Anderson’s first film in almost 30 years is ostensibly about her dog, but fans of the musician and performance artist know it’ll really be about far, far more than that.
Abramorama
"The Danish Girl"
Tom Hooper’s "The King’s Speech" had a coronation of sorts in Toronto on its way to winning Best Picture, giving his transgender drama with Eddie Redmayne a high bar to reach.
Focus Features
“Desierto”
Writer-director Jonás Cuarón was working on this script when he joined his father Alfonso and took a detour to make the Oscar-winning “Gravity,” but this tale of tensions along the U.S./Mexican border couldn't be timelier.
Esperanto Kino
“Thru You Princess”
Ido Haar’s documentary has one of TIFF’s wildest true stories: Israeli musician Kutiman, who assembles videos from the work of amateur performers he finds on YouTube, in the process making an unlikely star out of a New Orleans caregiver who posts her own videos under the name Princess Shaw.
Courtesy of TIFF
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With 289 features playing at this year’s TIFF, picking favorites can be impossible. But here are some standouts on TheWrap’s to-do list
With 289 features playing at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, picking favorites can be impossible. But here are some on TheWrap's to-do list