Passengers is an Underrated Sci-Fi Romance - MCE Notices | California State Portal

Despite starring three Marvel actors, including Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, this 10-year-old sci-fi romance, Passengers, is still severely underrated. It’s always wonderful to see Marvel actors break out of their major franchises to tackle non-superhero characters, and Pratt and Lawrence have done this better than most. With the likes of Her, The Magnificent Seven, Causeway, Don’t Look Up, American Hustle, and more under their belts, they’re two of the most celebrated actors working today.

This notoriety made expectations high when Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence teamed up for Passengers, and while it was a small box office win, Morten Tyldum’s 2016 sci-fi movie didn’t fare so well among critics. Passengers has stood the test of time, however, and its themes have only become more important and relevant over the last 10 years. In today’s climate of sci-fi stories, Passengers deserves more praise than ever.

Passengers Took Chris Pratt & Jennifer Lawrence Into Deep Space (With a Dark Twist)

Directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game, Silo) and written by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Dune), Passengers starred Chris Pratt as Jim Preston, a mechanical engineer traveling from Earth to the planet Homestead II in the sleeper ship, the Avalon. Jim is among 5000 colonists and 258 crew embarking on the 120-year journey in hibernation pods, but a malfunction in his pod caused by an asteroid collision wakes him up after only 30 years.

After giving up trying to find help or fix his pod, Jim enjoys the ship’s entertainment system and bonds with the android bartender, Arthur (Michael Sheen). However, after a year of isolation, and despite knowing it’s morally wrong, he wakes up another passenger, writer Aurora Lane (Lawrence). He lets her believe her pod also malfunctioned, and the pair form an intense romantic bond, which blows up when the truth is revealed.

Jim and Aurora eventually team up with Chief Deck Officer Gus Mancuso (Laurence Fishburne), who is also woken up because of a malfunction in his hibernation pod. Together, they manage to save the ship and rekindle their relationship, allowing Passengers to deliver more than just your typical sci-fi story. While some changes might have benefited the story and earned it more recognition, Passengers was a huge success in many ways.

Why Passengers Deserves Its Cult Classic Status 10 Years Later

Image via Sony Pictures

Sure, Passengers has some issues with pacing, narrative, and the controversial core of the story itself. However, the movie examines some complex and often taboo themes in an approachable and captivating way, which actually makes it one of the most relevant movies of the last 10 years. Passengers tackles intense themes of isolation, moral ambiguity, human connection, and consent in a unique way, separating it from similar sci-fi flicks.

Passengers puts its characters front-and-center, stripping away any of the flash of typical space-faring adventures and limiting the cast, which you could count on one hand. Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence deliver beautiful, grounded, and layered performances, particularly highlighted in scenes in which Jim struggles with his loneliness, even being pushed to the point of suicide, and in which Aurora learns the truth and grieves the life she might have had.

Many struggled with the movie’s central premise, as the idea of Aurora falling in love with Jim after his act of violence against her — waking her up and effectively destroying the life she wanted — is hard to wrap your head around. However, it’s this moral question that makes Passengers such an interesting movie. It forces you to question what you would do in this situation and whether you would wake someone else up after a year in isolation.

During a 2017 interview with Vogue, Lawrence suggested the movie might have fared better had Aurora woken up first, but this brings an unusual double standard into the spotlight. As Passengers stands, it examines the typically unspoken-about issue of male mental health, crushing loneliness, and the limits of human forgiveness, and while Jim’s actions are certainly controversial, a deeper examination of his thought process is necessary.

As well as being visually striking with high-quality production design and a high-concept premise that makes it fit in perfectly among today’s more prestigious sci-fi stories, Passengers also highlights the more intimate and questionable aspects of humanity that many movies shy away from. Passengers tells a beautiful and poetic story, as well as including intense drama and action, that explores some of the most interesting and poignant themes ever brought to the screen, so it deserves far more recognition and praise.