Clooney desperately tries to warn a returning spaceship of earthly apocalypse in this languid space caper
Encountering an acquaintance in London’s Piccadilly in the mid-1970s, Alec Guinness is said to have remarked, with a self-effacing smile, that he was growing a beard for a new science fiction film he was working on: “A small part, so a small beard.” George Clooney has a very big beard for his own medium-sized part in this negligible new sci-fi, which floats blandly in the cosmos, becalmed between two separate storylines, apparently planetstruck with wonderment.
Clooney also directs, working from a script that Mark L Smith has adapted from a 2016 bestseller by Lily Brooks-Dalton, Good Morning, Midnight. He does this with a sure hand, managing a disparate cast, each of whom has to deliver an individual emotional impact. As for his own performance, he handles this with modesty and style, although it is poignant to realise that Clooney has got to the career stage of not just having a grandfatherly beard, but a different actor to play in flashback his younger self, with a dark beard. This is Ethan Peck – although the voice would appear to be Clooney’s, dubbed in, but digitally altered to sound higher and lighter.