Robert Pattinson Perfected Sci-Fi Before ‘Mickey 17’ with ‘High Life’

While vampires are known to turn into bats in fiction, British actor Robert Pattinson is probably the only person known to have done just that in real life, making his initial breakthrough as vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight franchise before capping off his ascendance to stardom by becoming the latest actor to take on the eponymous hero in the Batman franchise. His latest role is as the down-on-his-luck protagonist in Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi dark comedy, Mickey 17 (2025); it’s the director’s first film since his brilliant, Oscar-winning satire Parasite (2019).

But devoted fans of Pattinson will know that Mickey 17 is not the first sci-fi film in which he portrays a destitute man forced by a dystopian government into embarking on a mission that he is unlikely to survive. Nor is it his first time collaborating with an acclaimed director from outside the US and the UK. Indeed, Pattinson already satisfied both of these criteria when he starred in French filmmaker Claire Denis’ grim 2018 sci-fi horror film, High Life. This bleak picture features a disturbing premise, several viscerally repulsive sequences (including scenes of sexual violence), and an overwhelming sense of isolation and existential dread amid the endless blackness of space, while nevertheless containing a glimmer of hope.

Robert Pattinson’s Cruel & Unusual Punishment

High Life

Release Date

September 26, 2018

Runtime

113 Minutes

Director

Claire Denis

High Life centers on a group of convicts, both male and female, aboard a small spaceship bound for a black hole, with the ostensible goal of extracting energy from the black hole for use back on Earth, with the state promising the crew their freedom should they succeed (a vanishingly unlikely outcome). However, the convicts are under the supervision of a mad doctor named Dibs (Juliette Binoche), who seeks to procreate the first human baby in space using the convicts as unwilling guinea pigs.

Aside from Dibs’ “experiments,” sexual activity between the convicts is prohibited. They are only allowed to use a room called “The Box,” which contains a number of bizarre devices designed for self-pleasure. However, Pattinson’s character, Monte — who murdered his friend as a child after blaming her for his beloved dog’s death — opts to remain celibate.

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As the mission progresses, the crew members gradually begin to die off one by one, whether by each other’s hands or as a consequence of Dibs’ grossly unethical attempts at artificial insemination. In possibly the film’s most horrifying scene, female convict Boyse (Mia Goth) takes control of a small shuttle after killing its intended pilot, Nansen (Agata Buzek). However, the ship runs into a vapor cloud that steers the ship towards the center of the black hole. What follows is essentially a gorier version of the wormhole scene in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014); Boyse’s body is violently torn apart as a result of spaghettification.

Meanwhile, Dibs successfully births a baby girl whom she names Willow after raping a sedated Monte and injecting his sperm into Boyse before the latter’s death. After Dibs reveals to Monte that he is Willow’s father, she ejects herself into space, leaving sole survivor Monte to raise his daughter on the ship alone.

Building on Earlier Sci-Fi Masterpieces

In many respects, High Life feels like a combination of several sci-fi classics that came before it. For instance, its non-linear narrative (it opens with Monte alone on the ship with baby Willow after the rest of the crew have died), the characters’ wistful nostalgia for their old lives on Earth, and its preoccupation with black hole physics are all reminiscent of Interstellar. On the other hand, the thematic prevalence of sexual violence and grotesque birthing echoes Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979).

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Furthermore, several shots in High Life feel like direct homages to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, such as the static exterior shots of the ship set against the overwhelming blackness of space, as well as the shot of Dibs’s dead body drifting out into space. Indeed, Dibs’ character parallels 2001’s ominous AI supercomputer HAL 9000 in that both are ruthlessly committed to their missions of scientific discovery, even at the expense of their crews’ lives, reflecting Kubrick’s and Denis’s mutual pessimism about the consequences of humanity’s progress in science and technology.

Finding Love in Hopeless Space

However, the final act, in which Monte and a now-teenage Willow (Jessie Ross) continue approaching the black hole on their derelict ship, has a noticeably different tone from the rest of the film. Without the threat of violence or conflict from Dibs and the other convicts, the atmosphere of these last few scenes is characterized by a kind of peaceful melancholy as the father and daughter slowly reach the end of their presumably one-way journey. In this regard, the film evokes a different sci-fi masterpiece with a less bleak outlook than 2001: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), which also takes place primarily on a derelict and (mostly) abandoned spaceship.

Rather than explore grander themes of technological advancement and humanity’s place in the cosmos, Solaris instead focuses on a man coping with the untimely loss of his wife. Denis ends High Life on a similarly tender and humanistic note, showing us a father and daughter still loving and supporting each other, even as their chances of surviving and returning to Earth dwindle. In one sense, the film’s closing scenes might be the darkest in the whole film, considering the apparent hopelessness of the pair’s situation and the possibility that young Willow might never get to grow up and see her home planet.

But, in another sense, it’s also the most beautiful and optimistic scene. In stark contrast to the coldness and cruelty in the first half, High Life’s ending shows us that, even in the most dire circumstances, humans can still have the capacity to love one another and hope for a better future. While it’s vastly different from the comically absurd Mickey 17, it’s nonetheless an imaginative sci-fi drama with a phenomenal Robert Pattinson, and more than worth a watch. High Life is available for rental on Apple TV+, Amazon Video, and Fandango at Home, and streaming on Hulu.

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