Toronto 2024 Review: U ARE THE UNIVERSE, A Space Romance

In the near future, a space garbageman, Andriy, is solo-piloting an aging space junker tasked with disposing of several kilotonnes of spent radioactive waste on one of Jupiter’s moons. Mid-journey, he gets the full Arthur Dent experience: First he finds out he is fired for cutting corners on proper disposal procedures, and lying about it. His angry boss (ominously) scolds him, “Fate does not like liars,” He then learns that the entire planet earth has been destroyed.

 

Either due to nuclear war, or nuclear mismanagement, or something else entirely beyond Andriy’s control, this makes him the last man in space. Or at least the last human in his neck of the solar system. With only his onboard computer and his vinyl record collection to keep him company, what is a stranded seventh-tier, recently-fired astronaut to do with his free time? The food and air will last several years. 



 

U Are The Universe is a Ukrainian science fiction romance, and debut feature from Pavlo Ostrikov. One that was somehow shot and edited in Kyiv during the initial Russian bombing and missile attacks at the beginning 2022. It is difficult to look at the lonely, yet hopeful, story on display here without putting it in the context of the war itself, even though the director insists the script was written and locked prior to the recent invasion of his country. 



 

The film has a deadpan sensibility, mixed with a cocktail of despair and lonely romantic charm. We watch Andriy’s various coping mechanisms play out over his months of being stranded, come what may. This is pretty much a oneiman show. Think Duncan Jones’ Moon, or moreso, William Eubank’s eerily similar, yet sadly forgotten 2011 indie, Love. Hopefully that is not the fate for U Are The Universe, as it is a lovely piece of entertainment featuring an empathetic and humorous performance from its star, Volodymyr Kravchuk. 



Andriy is the blue collar everyman, who manages to hold our attention as he runs the emotional gamut, a boring man in an extraordinary situation. As he comforts himself at one point with broadcasts into the void, “I have a damn good story with nobody to tell it to.” Ostrikov and his cinematographer use a series of clever costume and facial hair changes, as well as a sophisticated and satisfying series of match cuts, to make the most of their single set, as lovingly detailed as it is practically constructed, lived in space, with plants, and toys, and a belt-driven turntable to match the ship's analog control switches. 

 

He does have a buddy in the ship's computer, Maxim, whose physical interface is a cross between a 1950s era mechanical mail deilvery arm, and a 1990s era japanese robot. Maxim is programmed to cheer Andriy up in isolation, and be as much a buddy and crew member for these long stretches in space, as the ship's control system. Committed to its ‘positive attitude’ directive, Maxim has difficulty delivering the bad news of the complete destruction of everyone and everything that he knows an loves. It compensates by Andriy’s ‘birthday box’ morale device, months in advance, only to have him a stale cupcake, and a copy of Robinson Crusoe. This movie delights and thrives on morbid jokes.



Like nearly all zombie movies are still beholden to George Romero’s Living Dead trilogy, nearly all modern space travel movies continue to be beholden to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly with spaceship design and computer artificial intelligence. Ostrikov does over-indulge himself on occasion, with the films only cringy moment playing Also Sprach Zarathustra, along with a certain recognisable piece of furniture to even further underscore things. The conceit is marginally forgivable considering music and records are Andriy’s way of calming himself in fits of existential panic. 

 

Eventually, Andriy receives a distress call from a French woman named Catherine (voiced by Alexia Depicker) who is living on a space station 700 million miles away, orbiting the neighbouring planet (but in space terms, not exactly close) Saturn. The two begin a budding long-distance romance, like audio pen-pals. Their back and forth messages require several days to go one way, with plenty of time to fuss (or obsess) over what to say to each other. They talk about books, movies, music food, and family, partly to pass the time, but mainly for desperate human connection. Andriy even crafts a clay-sculpture from her self-description so he has something to look at directly while he listening to her voice. This also evokes a bit of a Wilson the volleyball, from Castaway, or perhaps a bit of Jack & Rose in Titanic.



But Catherine is running out of time faster than he is. Her station’s orbit is decaying into Saturn's gravity, so she has months to his years. As with all interstellar movies, the math and the probability problems are difficult, and coldly unforgiving. Maxim warns him of just how low the chances are here. The tentative romance, and human contact has lit a bright enough fire to get Andriy to attempt a desperate rescue. At the very least he wants to get closer to her, with his limited resources and rickety vessel. If he is going to die anyway, a one-in-a-million odds is better than no odds. It is our awareness of our own mortality, even as we try not to think about it, that makes us burn with purpose and seven sometimes, joy.



 

In times of difficulty, a countries entertainments are often escapist, comforting, and romantic. Musicals during the Great Depression, or the spate of fantasy blockbusters during the height of Cold War. Ostrikov, in the same vein, by no means re-invents the wheel here. He does offer several entertaining twists to this type of story to propel it forward and play with expectations, along with a consistently deadpan, self-deprecating, even universal, humanity. One told from a uniquely Ukrainian perspective. It is the end of the world as he knows it, and he feels fine.