August 32nd on Earth Review

This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, a place where I review all of the movies and limited series that I check out.

This is a movie I didn't expect to watch, but this is an instance of "I want to try and watch a movie on MUBI to get my trial's worth, what's available, oh, the debut feature of Denis Villeneuve is available and it's only an hour and a half, let's do it." I've been wanting to watch more films from Villeneuve in anticipation of his upcoming Dune adaptation (as I've only seen Arrival and I haven't done so since before I had an account on this site), so what better way to start than with his debut feature? For a debut feature, it's pretty solid. The direction and cinematography are really good, with some absolutely fantastic shots (particularly overhead shots of the Salt Lake desert and an opening shot of a car slowly veering off of the road), and the performances are very charming and authentic. The dialogue is also pretty charming, with the interactions between the two best friends this film centers around being the best part of the film.

In fact, I enjoyed this movie on enough of a level where if I had gotten my wishes, I would have given this film a 3.5 or even a 4-star rating by the time it ended. However, by the end of the film, I had to bring it down to a 3-star rating because there are so many loose threads hanging and promises to the audience broken by the end of the film that I can't really ignore them. This film establishes a lot of minor plot elements throughout the course of this story -- the morality of what these two want to do, the consequences that will probably come if they do it, the severity of certain issues, and most glaringly, the idea that this may be a slightly dystopian future -- that never feel like they come to a full conclusion. Elements of this possibly dystopian future are hinted at and the consequences of the actions of the two leads are almost delivered, but by the ending of this film, there is so much left for interpretation about what happens to their friendship and what consequences are given by the choices they make and even what year they're in and what kind of Canada and America they're living in that it's just vague. I really wanted to adore this movie, but there are so many elements that just don't feel as developed as they could have been, and I feel like if this movie was more like two hours, there could have been more time to flesh out the world these characters live in and allow the stakes to actually feel like something bad could happen and just resolve so many things that just feel left in the dust.

So, yeah, August 32nd on Earth could have been a lot better, but at the same time, this is Denis' debut feature, and you can't necessarily expect a perfect film right off the bat. The directorial and editing style is still unique enough and the characters, dialogue, and performances investing enough for you to at least care about the film (although admittedly, while the rapid-fire editing style of this film works most of the time, there are times where it is also incredibly jarring and almost messy). Overall, if you love Denis' works, I would recommend checking out this movie if you can, but honestly, I'm just gonna look forward to checking out Prisoners and Sicario after this.

Letter Grade: B-