The Midnight Sky (George Clooney, 2020) (Patreon)

NOTE: This "social reaction" is EMBARGOED. So let's keep it entre nous, fam.

I haven't checked in with George Clooney, Film Director since 2005, and judging from The Midnight Sky I don't need to go back and catch up. Granted, this film was already on the wrong foot with me when I discovered it was an example of possibly my least favorite subgenre, the "gruff old man softened by an innocent child" film. (Or in Mike D'Angelo shorthand, the "moppet / curmudgeon" scenario.) This one's post-apocalyptic, set in a desolate future three weeks after "the event." I don't think that chyron was an intentional callback to That Mitchell & Webb Look, which is disappointing in itself.

This isn't a review, since I only lasted an hour with this 150 minute extravaganza. Clooney's performance here as grizzled beardo Augustine is among his worst, as he hunches around like a hale and hearty middle-aged celebrity trying to look "old and feeble." He is the last man at an Arctic research station, scrambling to contact a returning spacecraft in order to warn them not to come back to Earth. (Lots of awkward A-plot / B-plot crosscutting ensues.) Just for added seriousness, I suppose, the little girl who was left behind with Augustine, named Iris (Caoilinn Springall) is mute. So apart from her big "expressive" saucer eyes, she's pretty much Wilson from Cast Away, a sounding board for clunky exposition. It's a mess, but a pretty typical mess -- watchable but only just.

Also, I'll be interested to learn whether the telegraphed "twist" is as dumb as I suspect. The Netflix blank checks just keep on flying, folks.