The Midnight Sky
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Set in the Arctic, The Midnight Sky follows Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist who has stayed behind at a research station as the rest of the world falls silent. When he learns that a spacecraft called the Aether is returning from a mission near Jupiter, he tries to warn its crew, led by Captain Sully, against coming home to a mysterious global catastrophe. Stranded in the far north, Augustine also encounters a young girl named Iris, and though he and Sully are separated by vast distance, their fates are connected.
George Clooney directed and stars as Augustine, working from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith. The film is the seventh of nine features Clooney has directed, arriving between Suburbicon and The Tender Bar, and he produced it with Grant Heslov and Keith Redmon. The cast includes Felicity Jones as Sully, David Oyelowo as Adewole, Kyle Chandler as Mitchell, Demián Bichir as Sanchez and Caoilinn Springall as Iris. It runs 118 minutes.
The Midnight Sky drew a mixed response. It holds a rating of 5.7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 94,000 votes, and the same score on TMDB from a much smaller base of roughly 2,000 votes. A critics' rating of 5.7 out of 10 from 250 reviews places it in line with those audience figures rather than above them, suggesting a film that divided viewers and reviewers alike.
What's left behind the scenes
- Felicity Jones (who plays Captain Sullivan) discovered she was pregnant after she had been cast in the role, and the director and lead actor George Clooney simply incorporated this circumstance into the plot.
- The film shows the spacecraft flying to Earth from moon K-23, then turning around and returning to K-23, but it's not as simple as the filmmakers assume. Just as Mars approaches Earth at its closest distance every 2 years, the distance between Jupiter and Earth also becomes minimal every 11 years or so. All landings and departures are planned to minimize travel time. Therefore, when flying to K-23 at its closest approach to Earth, the spacecraft crew would have to wait 9-10 years before returning to Earth in a way that minimizes flight time.
- The scene in which the characters played by George Clooney and Caoilinn Springall (who played Iris) lose each other was filmed in Iceland during a snowstorm. George Clooney was without goggles, and as a result, takes lasted no more than a minute, after which he had to run indoors and direct hot air from a hair dryer onto his face to thaw his frozen eyelashes.
- Preparing for the role of Augustine, an astronomer suffering from cancer, actor George Clooney lost 11 kg (24 lbs).
- The expedition members are being evacuated from the Arctic station in daylight, however, this is happening in February, when it should be dark there.
- Around the 39th minute of the film, the characters watch Stanley Kramer’s 1959 black-and-white science fiction drama 'On the Beach', starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner. In this film, Ethan Peck, the actor’s grandson who appeared in Kramer’s films, appears as young Augustine on screen.
- Human settlement on a fictional moon of Jupiter would be impossible due to the intense radiation.
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