Ad Astra

he artistic compromises that come with working on a mid-budget film like are inevitable While it’s less money than the hundreds of millions that go into major studio blockbuster fare, it’s a significant jump from the more modest scope of James Gray’s prior work, including 2016’s putatively epic With this increase in budget comes an increase in the risk of financial failure, and studio pushback on any of the project’s more challenging elements is to be expected. The question of what additions or changes were made to has been a matter of ongoing speculation, and Gray himself has not confirmed any specifics., he estimates that “90% of the movie” reflects his original vision for the film, a sci-fi project that had been in creative development for almost a decade, and implies any compromise that had to be made was outweighed by the opportunity to work at such an ambitious scale. The consensus choice among critics for Gray’s biggest concession is the inclusion of a running voiceover narrating the internal monologue of Brad Pitt’s astronaut Major Roy McBride, likely because it is an easy element to add late in the production, and, for some, adds an overly explanatory, on-the-nose element to a movie that perhaps doesn’t need it. However, I’m with Gray on his admission that making such accommodations ultimately doesn’t take away from the final product. If anything, Roy’s voiceover in is a thematically appropriate inclusion in a story that is ostensibly about talk therapy.