Proxima

Locations
Call Number: DVD Drama Proxima
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch

Originally released as a motion picture in 2020.
Wide screen.
Eva Green, Zelie Boulant, Matt Dillon.
Sarah is a French astronaut training at the European Space Agency in Cologne. She is the only woman in the arduous program. She lives alone with Stella, her seven-year-old daughter. Sarah feels guilty that she cannot spend more time with her child. When Sarah is chosen to be part of the crew of a year-long space mission called ₁Proxima₂, it creates chaos in the mother-daughter relationship.
DVD, wide screen; 2.0 Dolby digital, 5.1 Dolby digital.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A Deeply Emotional Look at the Costs of Space Travel submitted by Meginator on July 22, 2021, 9:03pm By focusing closely on a mother’s relationship with her daughter during the final stages of astronaut training, this film presents a deeply contemplative view of the human costs of extraplanetary exploration that is often alluded to, but rarely fully explored, in similar stories. The acting is fantastic and Eva Green does a superb job portraying the internal emotional conflicts that must arise in all astronauts at one time or another. The script is sparse and the characters often talk around or otherwise avoid what they are actually feeling, which again feels true to life. The only aspect of the film that didn’t work for me was a truly preposterous scene near the end that is emotionally fulfilling but so completely unrealistic that it immediately took me out of the film and changed my perspective in a way that I don’t think the filmmakers intended to do. Aside from this small hiccup, however, this is an interesting alternate perspective on spaceflight that dives deeper into themes most space stories only pay lip service to.