The Great Beyond
Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi
Director: Ang Lee
Writers: Jimmy Ellis & Chad Taylor
Cast: Amy Adams, Idris Elba, John Cho, Naomie Harris, Ahn Sung-ki, Elsa Pataky, Ella Balinska, Jeon Jong-so, Rainn Wilson (voice)
Plot: In the vast openness of space, the three-person crew of the International Space Station begin to wake on their 88th day on the station. Terrence Lord (Idris Elba) is a British astronaut who is now in his third trip to space, the most of anyone on the crew. He wakes first and begins to have his "morning" meal before being joined by Park Sung-min (John Cho), the second Korean to ever fly aboard the ISS. Finally, they are joined by May Wilson (Amy Adams), the lone American and lone female on board. Their personalities differ but 3 months on the space station mean they've built a camaraderie where they talk like long-time friends. Terrence is brash and talkative while Sung-min has a more dry sense of humor (and sometimes struggles with English being his second language). May, meanwhile, is more reserved than the both of them but they still mesh well together.
Today, May conducts a spacewalk to repair part of the outside of the station. Terrence and Sung-min assist from the inside and all goes smoothly.
They are interrupted when they get an emergency alert on their ship's computer. They help May inside and phone in Graham (Rainn Wilson), their main line of communication at NASA. He makes sure they are all there together and delivers some sobering news: a previously undiscovered mile-wide asteroid is on a collision course with Earth in 20 hours’ time. The news has spread around the world and people are in shock and saying their goodbyes as this will likely wipe out human life on Earth. The astronauts are, just as everyone else, are in a bit of denial and ask if the planetary defense plans can do anything but Graham says that the short window means they can't.
After the denial has worn off a bit, the astronauts look face-to-face with Earth's fate. May asks her comrades if they should de-orbit to be with their families at the end. Terrence is all for this idea but Sung-min voices his concern that he is not sure if they would reach Earth in time. May says that, for her, it is worth the risk. They bring this idea to Graham but he says that not only could they not make it in time but there would be no one on the ground to assist their landing. Everyone has something bigger to worry about.
Graham tells them that NASA will try to get in contact with their families, if possible. The minutes feel like hours as millions of thoughts race through their minds at the moment. Terrence's wife Shauna (Naomie Harris) is first contacted and they both cry as they say their goodbyes. Terrence gives a message for each of his five kids and tells them that he loves them and will see them soon. Sung-min talks to his father, Jun-ho (Ahn Sung-ki), and Jun-ho reminds his son how proud he is of his accomplishments and Sung-min says he wouldn't have done it without a father like him. Unlike Terrence and Shauna, Sung-min and Jun-ho never touch directly on the asteroid and thus they act as if it is just any conversation. Graham gets back on the line and is sad to inform May that they were unable to get into contact with her spouse. May is devastated and briefly lashes out and pleads with Graham but he says that this is the end for him, too. It is time for him to go home with his family and say his goodbyes. Earth communication signs out for a final time.
The tense wait is on as the asteroid continues hurtling towards Earth. The three of them look at each other, they all join hands and close their eyes hoping for the best. The asteroid hits the Earth and straight away all water around it rippled in all directions, the land then was washed away. The contents of Earth are catapulted into the sky, slowly creating a uniform cloud over the Earth. It’s happening all around the world, Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia, Antarctica, South America and North America, there is nothing left. And it all happened in a flash.
Terrence is the first to open his eyes, he begins to tremble but no tears he is gobsmacked, he can’t believe what has just happened, the world is over. May opens her eyes at the same time as Sung-min, May begins crying and leaves the window to go back to her quarters. Sung-min continues looking at the blue planet turn red/orange before totally being blocked out by the dust and ashes entering its atmosphere. The Earth is know completely blocked out from the Sun, just as they had feared. Sung-min looks to Terrence as if to ask what just happened. No words delivered just silence. They stand in shock.
The days pass and they can't quite get themselves to speak about what has occurred. They are all smart, scientific people, but even they are struggling to come to terms with what has happened. Terrence pulls them together and tries to break the tension (if it could even be called that). Now that they can't go back, what were their last few days on Earth like? May says there is one moment that sticks out in her mind as the film cuts to a flashback sequence narrated by May.
May reveals that moments before she left to get on the shuttle, Vera (Elsa Pataky), her partner told her that the sperm donor worked that she has fallen pregnant. May has excitement written all over her face she hugs Vera and tells her that she will be back ASAP. She then kisses her on the cheek and gets on the shuttle, waving goodbye. Sung-min asks if she preferred a boy or a girl before immediately regretting asking. May tells him it is ok and says she would unconditionally loved whatever they had so it didn’t matter to her.
This brings a smile to Terrence's face - a rarity around these parts since the asteroid. He says that his lasting memory was on the opposite end of the spectrum. He and his wife were preparing to send their eldest of five, Jasmine (Ella Balinska), to university in the States. This was a monumental landmark in his parenting journey - except for one thing. Days after arriving, Jasmine told him that she wanted to drop out of school and join the street artist scene. Knowing how this would disappoint his mother, he kept this to himself and gave her money (on the down low) to help her pursue this. He feels guilty about having lied to his wife but felt that this scenario was the only one where everyone could be happy. In the present, he says that he knows she made some killer art.
Sung-min smiles when it gets to his turn to talk about his last days on Earth. In the memory, he took his father out for a round of golf and dinner after. Back in the present, May asks what they talked about over dinner. Sung-min struggles to remember before admitting that he was lying. He and his father weren't even on speaking terms. He spent those last few days alone. Terrence asks about the time they just spoke before the asteroid. Sung-min is at a loss for words and says that is the first time he and his dad had talked in 15 years, when Sung-min's fiancee died. He hangs his head in shame and says he didn't even know that his dad knew he was an astronaut. And then to hear him say he is proud of what Sung-min has become. May and Terrence put their arm around him and console him and he thanks them.
The realization starts to wash over them again that they have all lost people that are very close to them. However, how are they to feel about this when everyone else is gone too? Nothing in life prepares to mourn like this. They try to break up the gloominess by playing cards and getting back to routine activities but find it impossible. What's the point of anything anymore? May says that, as hard as it may be, they should use this opportunity to celebrate life as we knew it. A funeral for Earth, if you will.
Later, they all sit around and make small talk (which all feels different under these circumstances). They start to come to terms with the fact that human life - or at least this incarnation of it - is over. They are the last of it. May asks if they believe in an afterlife. Terrence, a devout Christian, says he knows there is. Because he knows his family is waiting for him. Sung-min, meanwhile, says that he has never been the religious type so he doesn't often think about the afterlife. He believes that human choices had direct consequences and played no part in a greater plan. When his fiancee died in a traffic accident, he struggled to accept that it was "meant to be". He ran through all the scenarios in his head of how he could have prevented it. All the little choices made that day that could have led to a different outcome. This guilt is what caused him to distance himself from others and he wanted to only be responsible for his own life.
Sung-min then posits that something will probably rise from the ashes of the old Earth. Life will emerge again and something - humans or not - will bring the planet back to prosperity. They know, as scientists, that Earth has a history of asteroid strikes and there was always the possibility. Maybe they can take solace in the fact that they are at the end of this cycle but at least it is a cycle that will continue turning.
May, who has mainly stayed silent on the religious and philosophical front, says she clings to the hope that there are alternate dimensions out there. Maybe a different dimension for every small decision that Sung-min just mentioned. Not heaven, really. People talk about heaven as a continuation. May would like to believe that there is somewhere out there where the asteroid missed and she and Vera are watching their kids play soccer and worrying about paying bills and all that jazz. At least that's what she'd like to think.
As time is passing, May, Terrence and Sung-min begin to become skinnier, and skinnier. Their supplies are running low, along with their motivation to go on. Terrence is getting dressed and his bones are visible, and sickly. May looks at a photo of her and Vera, where the difference in body is visible, she has no jaw line. Sung-Min just sits and day-dreams in the distance.
Terrence lays down, unable to sleep. Unprompted, he begins to cry. Sung-min comes from a different part of the station and lays down next to Terrence. In Terrence's comforting embrace, Sung-min starts to cry as well. This goes on unbroken for a minute straight.
Early the next morning, Terrence wakes both Sung-min and May and tells them that he has a request. He says that he is ready to go and needs their help in exiting the space station. They try to convince him to stay with them so they can ride it out together but he is adamant that his decision is the right one. He's ready to see his family again. He reminds Sung-min the things he said earlier about choices, well this is Terrence’s final choice. Sung-min is still unsure but May says they should help him out. Terrence exits the station for a spacewalk without a helmet and succumbs to quick death due to the lack of oxygen.
After Terrence's passing, Sung-min and May sense that the end is near for their bodies. They debate going out the way he did, to end it there but they want to die in someone else's company. May proposes that they board The Soyuz (which transports humans to and from the Space Station) and face the darkness unafraid. Sung-min cracks a smile and says why not? They load up in The Soyuz and head out into the unknown. May starts fading first and lays her head on Sung-min's shoulder.
As May starts passing out the screen goes black and then lights up with white. May is with Vera and gives her a kiss. She hears a laugh from behind her and a little girl, a toddler, runs and hugs her leg. May chases her around the house laughing and catches her she picks her up and gives her a huge hug. Vera walks over and the happy family group hug.
Sung-min is on Earth, about to get on the shuttle. This time, his father is there and gives him a hug before he leaves. To his surprise, his youthful-looking fiancee Yu-mi (Jeon Jong-so) is also there and gives him a kiss before he leaves. He steps aboard the ship.
The ISS floats alone in the open void of space, on the brink of the great beyond.
