New to Netflix: IO

Starring: Margaret Qualley, Anthony Mackie, Danny Huston, Tom Payne

Director: Jonathan Helpert

Thanks to pollution or as Sam (Margaret Qualley) describes it, human nature, Earth is now basically uninhabitable. Thus the Exodus mission is launched, temporarily taking residence above IO, one of Jupiter’s moons, until a more stable habitat for humanity is found. Sam stayed behind on earth, as one of the last remaining humans, to work on the research of her father, Dr. Harry Waldon (Danny Huston). Using bees, he and Sam hope to breed a lineage of bee that can produce oxygen and help make Earth rehabitable. In between her tests, she writes to her boyfriend Elon (Tom Payne), who is part of the Exodus mission. After a storm knocks out the bee colony, Micah (Anthony Mackie) arrives via hot air ballon searching for Dr. Waldon. Who is he? What does he want? As he and Sam begin to bond and work together, one thing becomes clear: they can’t stay on earth much longer and need to head towards one of the last remaining Exodus shuttles to get them off Earth.

This is a very quiet film with a breakout performance from Margaret Qualley. She's alone for about the first third of the movie and watching her go through her routine by herself is mesmerizing. Her story is pretty cool too, as her character Sam was born after the event happened, while Micah was born before. A scene of her questioning him about what the world was like before could have come across as silly but she plays Sam’s wonder and innocence so well that it’s very convincing. Mackie is quite good as well in what could have been a paycheck role for him.

The film also works well for having no real set piece and mostly being a one location, contained character study. There are no action set pieces at all, even the storm that destroys Sams camp happens off screen. That being said, the cinematography is pretty awesome and the scenes of Sam exploring destroyed humanity are well done.

While the script uses a lot of technical jargon, especially when Sam is explaining her father's experiments, the movie isn't as smart as it thinks it is. There are also a couple twists that are really easy to see coming. Because of this, a character comes off as not as smart as they should be. People might also have an issue with the ending and a choice a character makes. I still don't really know how I feel about it. The lack of an action set piece might also bug sci-fi fans who aren't looking for a more thought provoking piece.

Come for the performances and possibly leave scratching your head at the ending.

B-