"The Space Between Us" Review by Tim Hellman

'THE SPACE BETWEEN US': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

A sci-fi teen romance, about a boy that's born on Mars who wants to visit Earth, but it might kill him. The film stars Asa Butterfield, Britt Robertson, Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino. It was directed by Peter Chelsom, who's also helmed a lot of other sentimental tearjerkers like this, and it was written by Allan Loeb, with Richard Barton Lewis and Stewart Schill. The movie has received mostly harshly negative reviews from critics, and it's also bombed at the Box Office so far. I loved it!

The story is set in the near future, when an astronaut who's sent to Mars, named Sarah Elliot (Janet Montgomery), discovers she's pregnant. Sarah decides to have the baby there, but she dies during childbirth. Knowing that it might kill the child, who's named Gardner, to try to bring him home to Earth, the remaining astronauts raise him there on Mars. At 16, Gardner (Butterfield) decides that he really wants to visit his home planet, but the man in charge of the space mission, Nathaniel Shepherd (Oldman), is afraid that he won't survive the visit. Gardner becomes obsessed with the idea though, and he also really wants to meet his father. A teenage girl, that he meets online, named Tulsa (Robertson), helps him.

The movie is very sentimental; but I love sentimental movies, when they're done right (like this one is). It's well written, and acted (you can never go wrong with Gary Oldman). It's also a very sweet, and quite touching, love story; and it's about outcasts finding their way in life. I think it's an extremely beautiful (and very well made) movie, and I don't understand the critical hate against it (once again). Audiences, that have seen it, all rave about it (it has an average viewer rating of A-). The film kind of reminds me of 'COLLATERAL BEAUTY' (which was also written by Loeb), from the end of last year. I loved that movie as well, and the critics hated it. Fuck the critics!