REVIEW. THE DOG STARS: Searching for Humanity in Devastating Times.

From Left: Josh Brolin, Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce in Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars.

How far would you expand your movie genre repetoire just to see your favorite actor/actress on screen? Would you tolerate a rom-com, endure graphic violence, sacrifice hours of your life on a so-so script because there's something/someone else enticing you to the theater?

Over the years, I've definitely enlarged my cinematic palate because of an interesting artist, a provocative director, or a celebrity crush. I would never have watched Logan's Run, a 1976 sci-fi action fantasy that's now a cult classic, if Michael York hadn't been in it. I've seen every single Woody Allen movie - the classics, the congenial comedies, even the occasional clunkers - because I'd rather watch mediocre Woody than any Marvel Comics installment (save, maybe the first Iron Man and Black Panther). If it weren't for Quentin Taranetino, I may never have realized there's more to violence than bruality: there's wit, irony, even humor.

Movie going, for me, has often been driven - dare I say intensified - because of the presence of an artist that has piqued my intellectual curiousity, caught my aesthetic attention, or touched my heart.

That said, post-apocalytic movies are not my thing. Ever since I sat through (endured is probably a more accurate word) a double feature of Mad Max and The Road Warrior in the early 80s, I decided that nothing, not even a young Mel Gibson, could entice me to sit through another bleak encounter with the end of the world. I have thus successfully mastered avoiding movies like Max Mad: Fury Road (2015), A Quiet Place (2018), and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), mostly because of my own defiant opposition to watching the world as we know it disappear into smouldering ash and stinking debris.

But now there is The Dog Stars, directed by one of cinema's greats, Ridley Scott, an adaptation of Peter Heller's 2012 sci-fi novel of the same name, which was highly praised for its insight into the "physical, mental, and spiritual" impact of a global pandemic on those who survive. If that sounds too close to the recent coronavirus plague, keep in mind that Heller's novel was published almost a decade before Covid, so its eerily prophetic vision of a world decimated by an uncontrollable virus is deservedly chilling. But as Ridley Scott movies go, I am more of a Thelma and Louise fan than a repeat viewer of Gladiator, Blade Runner or Black Hawk Down, though I have always admired both the genre-defying depth and visual breadth of Scott's career. At almost 90, he doesn't seem to be slowing down in either creativity or cinematic verve.

Still, The Dog Stars clearly falls in the "not my first choice" movie genre, so why has the movie's release date been on my calendar for almost six months?

The answer is simple, especially if you've been following MJ's blog views and movie reviews. The Dog Stars stars Jacob Elordi, my latest cinematic obsession who, for the past three years, has racked up a formidable filmography by taking on a plethora of diverse, mostly supporting roles, in movies like Priscilla (he played Elvis), Saltburn (as an entitled Oxford snob), and The Narrow Road to the Deep North (a must-see mini-series in which he inhabited the role of a physician held prisoner-of-war by the Japanese during World War II).

If those projects don't sound familiar, it's because they flew under the blockbuster movie radar, and Elordi was kind of a "best kept secret" in terms of leading man-in-waiting. Then last fall, his performance as "The Creature" in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein sent him into the cinematic stratosphere, earning him a Critics Choice Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Elordi followed Frankenstein with another Gothic anti-hero, Heathcliff, in Emerald Fennell's very personal interpretation of Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights."

In all of his roles, Elordi has played unique, often deeply troubled characters, yet he has managed to convey an inner sense of compassion and curiosity toward each that turns even the most brutal role into something/someone human. You can see it, feel his connection to these broken characters through his ever-searching, soulful eyes. Elordi's "Creature" was testament to the power of forgiveness, a study in mortal frailty and spiritual resillience. With "Wuthering Heights," he delivered a stunning, complex portrayal that carefully balanced Heathcliff's raw, undisciplined brutishness with intense psychological torment and emotional desire.

In The Dog Stars, Elordi's Hig is another tortured soul, having lost his wife and child to a global pandemic. But Hig is an ordinary everyman, a mechanic whose simple life calls for a kind of understated restraint, one that masks a deeply rooted sense of hope for the future. It's not an easy tightrope to walk, as Hig's quiet observations of the world around him, similar to Joel Edgerton's in last year's brilliant Train Dreams, demand the kind of temperance that, while keeping an emotional distance, still draws the audience in to his story. Elordi more than meets the task here, imbuing in Hig a gentle optimism that never feels false or contrived, one that is born out of longing for a happier past and a determination to find a sanguine future. If there was any question about Elordi's ability to fill the role of leading man, he has erased all doubt here, delivering a smartly subdued performance that directly connects Hig's optimism to the movie's underlying search for humanity amidst devastation.

That director Ridley Scott has partnered Elordi with Josh Brolin, whose gun-carrying, world-weary ex-Marine, Bangley, makes the perfect foil for Hig, is a casting masterstroke. Elordi and Brolin are terrific together, sparring in ways that feel simultaneously tense and genuine. Their different perspectives about human nature fuel the narrative, ultimately providing a satisfying conclusion that buoys the movie's major themes. Without giving too much away, the scene where Hig finds Bangley dancing in his underwear after surviving an attack from the Reapers, a group of excessively tatooed horders looking to ravage the now barren land, is worth the price of admission.

Completing Scott's impressive cast are Margaret Qualley as Cima, a young widow grieving her own loss. Unlike Hig, though, Cima is willing to dive in and take risks to find some semblance of personal happiness. Cima is living with her father, Jack/"Pops" (a gruff Guy Pearce), a former Navy SEAL, who is initially as skeptical of Hig as he is any stranger. There is also Benedict Wong as Aaron, the leader of a nearby Mennonite community that Hig visits regularly and with whom he has developed a familial-like connection. When one of the children gives Hig a drawing she has made of him and his dog Jasper, he is genuinely touched. We later see the small picture attached to his Cessna cockpit. Finally, in an absolutely description-defying cameo, there is Allison Janney as Darlene, a former flight attendant now running a surreally reconverted airport near Denver. Her ten minutes on screen must be experienced to appreciate fully, though understanding her only scene may be a bit more elusive.

The Dog Stars is a thoughtful movie, at times poetic and lyrical in tone and temperament, made even more breathtaking by Erik Messerschmidt's sweeping cinematography and Harry Gregson-Williams's evocative score. The movie was filmed in Italy, so the Dolomites stand in for the Rockies where Heller placed his novel. Almost no CGI is used, so this is good, old-fashioned movie-making. At its core, The Dog Stars is a reflective meditation on loss and grief, of finding the reason to go on living in a world that seems uncaring and cold. For Hig, his faithful dog Jasper is the last link to the peaceful life he longs to rediscover. When he hears a voice on his Cessna radio, Hig is determined to locate its source, which he believes will lead to human connection and the world he once knew.

In this way, The Dog Stars is more anti-post-apocalypic in its depiction of a world in distress, one desperately in need of hope. For those enamored with the bleak end of the world desolation found in films like Mad Max: Furty Road, The Dog Stars is probably not your kind of movie, as it lacks the intense action and relentless violence that characterize most post-apocalytic environments, or at least like many of those depicted on the silver screen.

As of this writing, The Dog Stars has been met with mixed, often tepid reviews, praising Elordi and the rest of the cast, but complaining the Ridley Scott's adaptation of Peter Heller's novel lacks "urgency" and the over-the-top violence that typically punctuates films of this genre. But I dunno. Maybe because I'm kind of post-apocalypic averse, I found the sweet tale of Hig and his faithful dog Jasper tender and affecting, a gentle reminder of how many of us might respond to a forsaken world filled with emptiness and despair.

The Dog Stars centers on an all too familiar post-pandemic world, but Scott's take on this post-apocalyptic tale deviates from typical end of the world stories in its enduring, if subtle, optimism, so just let it wash over you. I did, and I left the theater thinking about our current world, about how Covid changed so many small aspects of daily life. In one especially telling scene, Hig and Cima make a list of all the things they missed from life before their world ended. "I miss singing on the way to the grocery store," Cima laughs. "I miss grocery stores," Hig replies. When he places his earphones on her and quietly plays a song she remembers from the past (it is, fittingly, Hozier's "Like Real People Do"), her face brightens, pleased at the song, but also wistful about what has happened since she last listened to it.

Good stuff here, though much of it may seem slow to audiences more accustomed to non-stop action movies. Did I enjoy The Dog Stars more because of Jacob Elordi? Probably. Do I think it's a great film because of he's in it? No, but I do think Elordi's presence contributes to making it a movie worth seeing, especially if you're the least bit thoughtful the things - both planned and un - that happen in a lifetime, and how those events define who we are and how we think and feel.

Though life has certainly changed and challenged me, I, like Hig, sometimes long for an earlier, pre-pandemic time where the future still seemed to hold promise, where the end of civilization as we know it didn't seem so close, where, to paraphrase former President Bill Clinton, we could still believe in a place called hope.

*******

The Dog Stars is currently playing in theaters. It is rated "R" for profuse profanity, end-of-the-world incineration and annilhilation, and mature themes. Global mortality is no laughing matter, after all. The Dog Stars will likely stream on Hulu/Disney+ later this year. Netflix and Amazon Prime will also have streaming options for it.