Starring: Adam Sandler, Paul Dano, Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Isabella Rossellini, Kunal Nayyar, Lena Olin
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Netflix sci-fi drama directed by Johan Renck and written by Colby Day. Spaceman (2024) centers on astronaut, Jakub (Adam Sandler), who six months into a solitary research mission to the edge of the solar system, realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth. Desperate to fix things with his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan), he is helped by a mysterious creature from the beginning of time he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship, Hanus (Paul Dano). He works with Jakub to make sense of what went wrong before it is too late.
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Best Quotes
Jakub: We still don’t know what they are or where they come from. But as I enter the Chopra Cloud, I might just unravel some mysteries of the universe.
Jakub: What I’m doing is for everyone back home, and that makes me very proud. No, I’m not the loneliest man in the world.
Lenka: You’re not afraid to be on your own. I was afraid, but I’m not anymore. I love you. But people change. And if you don’t let them change, they die.
Lenka: I know you can feel the silence.
Hanus: I did not intend to frighten you, skinny human.
Lenka: You go where I go. And I go where you go. Right, Spaceman?
Hanus: You wish to know if I am real.
Jakub: Are you?
Hanus: I am as real as you are.
Jakub: You can’t be.
Jakub: Why are you here?
Hanus: I am like you, an explorer.
Hanus: [to Jakub] Your loneliness intrigued me. I intended to study you a day or two, but then I wished to know more. You compelled me. I’ve come to understand that I might be of help.
Lenka: When you love someone, you’re meant to amputate a piece of what is you and replace it with a piece of the other. Do you get that I f***ing amputated so much of myself I don’t even know who I am anymore? What have you given up, huh?
Hanus: Perhaps my presence can lessen your solitude.
Jakub: I don’t need your help.
Hanus: But you do.
Hanus: You have many boundaries, skinny human. Perhaps they are the cause of your loneliness.
Hanus: Just like you, I fled my planet. Through galaxies, through black holes. I fled through the universe, through time, looking for solace. But then I found you. Is this how your kind treats your feelings of loneliness?
Jakub: It’s one way I suppose.
'Everything that begins must end. Even the universe itself.' - Hanus (Spaceman) Share on X
Hanus: I don’t understand. Why commit to a promise if it can readily be broken? What purpose does such a commitment serve?
Hanus: Your memories are making me depressed. But the spread made of hazelnut did make my realization seem less unpleasant.
Jakub: Maybe we need to save some for later then.
Lenka: I loved him. I loved that he was ambitious. I was wrong. Young people are wrong all the time.
Zdena: People are wrong all the time.
Hanus: Your kind carries a great deal of guilt.
Jakub: Yours doesn’t?
Hanus: No. Why should we? The universe is as it should be.
Hanus: You chose to flee your planet, yet that act is destructive to you.
Lenka: What does that mean, “he’s not doing well”?
Commissioner Tuma: He misses his wife.
Lenka: Then he shouldn’t have left.
'The silence is the point. The two of you together, silent, lost, afraid, in the dark, holding on. That is the point.' - Commissioner Tuma (Spaceman) Share on X
Hanus: [to Jakub, referring to Lenka] You welcomed her sadness. All these broken pledges except for the one you made to your great discovery. How could you fail to see that she, one day, would lose the will to believe in you?
Hanus: With great conviction, you do not even try to understand your mate. To what end? It is impossible to connect with someone who does not want to see anything but himself, who only wants to connect when it serves him.
Hanus: At first, I thought it was your kind’s nature, selfishness, shortsightedness. But through your Lenka, I now see it. It is you. Your loneliness is self-inflicted. I will leave you to your mission.
Hanus: My interest in you has expired.
Jakub: You can’t leave me. I need you. You’re helping! I’m listening to you!
Hanus: You can’t be helped.
Hanus: You need to come back with a very different discovery, but all you can see is yourself. Good luck, skinny human.
Jakub: [to Lenka] I get it now. I do. Do you remember when I said I wanted to see beyond Jupiter? I can’t imagine anything worse now. I just want to come home.
Jakub: [to Lenka] When we met, I felt safe for the first time in my life. And now I can’t, for the life of me, understand why I kept leaving you behind when you’re the only thing that matters. You tried hard to know me. I am so sorry I never made a real effort to know you. You were right there in front of me, and I didn’t see you.
Jakub: [to Lenka] I have lived a life for all the wrong reasons. What a f***ing waste. I don’t deserve you. And I never have. If I could do it again, I’d do it better. And that’s a promise I would never ever break. If I could do it again.
Hanus: I cannot let you face the Beginning alone. I’ve come to understand that I don’t want to be alone for that either.
Hanus: Why fear a truth? This is not the way of my kind, but it is the way of humans. I am starting to understand why daydreams and nightmares, they are both of essence.
Jakub: This isn’t such a bad place to end things.
Hanus: This isn’t the end.
Hanus: Skinny human, this is it. This is everything. This is the Beginning and the ending. Every vibration of all time. It is all contained here. Your past and your future.
'Every promise. Every heartbreak. Every atonement. Everything is permanent. Yet nothing ever is. That is the truth of the universe.' - Hanus (Spaceman) Share on X
Hanus: No one has to hurt, not here, where you can see everything.
Jakub: It’s all so unlikely that she and I would meet, that you and I would meet.
Hanus: Yet here we are. You thought this was everything you wanted, so what’s not here, Jakub?
Jakub: She’s not here.
Jakub: I feel you slipping away.
Hanus: Yes, it is inevitable. It’s not without some fear, but I can leave you now.
Hanus: I begin and I end here. But perhaps this is not your ending, skinny human.
Jakub: Now I feel fear.
Hanus: As you do. But you also feel hope for you, your Lenka. That is the wisdom of your tribe.
Jakub: If I had known then what I know now, I never would have left.
Lenka: If I had known then what I know now, would I have kissed you?
Jakub: Would you? Would you kiss me again?
Lenka: It was a really good kiss.