Joel on Film

In the post-apocalyptic near-future of The Dog Stars, a pandemic has wiped out the majority of the world’s population. It was a simple flu, or so everyone thought until it was simply too late to rally the humans of Earth to do something about it. There is no doubt that details like this cut to the painful core of our own recent experiences with a pandemic, and at one point, a character says that all it takes to catch the disease is for someone to cough openly into the face of somebody else.

The protagonist of this adaptation of Peter Heller’s novel knows as much as anybody around him about the severity of the influenza that killed billions across the globe. His wife died after some time spent on a ventilator, barely able to breathe, and now, Hig (Jacob Elordi) flies around in a prop plane, looking for a place to settle down with his dog Jasper and his memories of a better time (their infant child had already died just a year previously). Mark L. Smith’s screenplay finds Hig to be emotionally near the end of that journey of self-discovery, in a way that resonates as one of the soberest realizations of a movie that has been theoretically filled with them.

The story here has been divided pretty cleanly into three sections, each one overlapping with the others to some degree but otherwise quite separate. The first one introduces us to Hig, to his dog and to their sorry situation on the outskirts of Denver in the year 2035. Hig’s one and only human friend in the world is Bangley (Josh Brolin), once a Marine (always, etc.) whose plan for survival to stay exactly where he is and never, ever leave for any reason at all.

Hig and Bangley defend the latter’s strongold from outside attack, with Bangley’s operating wisdom being that one should not cross a boundary into another’s land with a weapon unless one plans to use that weapon. That’s probably a good idea in general, and among the ensemble here, Brolin is the best at communicating the weathering effects of this new reality upon a man who spent a life and career in defense of others. He’s here as a voice of reason for Hig, though the latter does not always heed his sage advice, and Hig’s own philosophy, about preparing for a specific mission single-mindedly, is tested when he tries to venture a few dozen miles away to Grand Junction.

It was there where he specifically remembers an adventure had with his wife in that old life, and he very much wants to go back. A third gutting loss—too early, rather, into the film to have much of an impact—tells him to put his plan more seriously into action, before more of the unwanted visitors on the surrounding land decide to attack once again. In case it sounds like there is more going on here than what resides on the surface of this story, Smith bungles that by merely wandering through the different elements of it, occasionally injecting the proceedings with life by putting Hig or Bangley or a couple of the other characters in this narrative in direct danger in some way.

That leads to the second and third sections here, with the first of those two an interlude in which Hig finds himself in the company of fellow survivors Cima (Margaret Qualley) and “Pops” (Guy Pearce)—though he has an actual name—to whom he develops an unanticipated attachment. Cima especially knows what it’s like to lose a spouse, and the film inevitably becomes a romantic drama based entirely upon a mutual respect and understanding, rather than shallow physical attraction. It’s not much, honestly, and because the movie still has something to prove about its sense of time and setting, it also exists in contrast to what the story eventually becomes.

It’s about this time that we are reminded—and unpleasantly surprised to find—that the film has been directed by Ridley Scott, a usually sturdy filmmaker in an uncharacteristically ponderous mode this time around. The third section finds Hig, Cima and Pops arriving at a destination to find a small civilization with a dark secret, where Allison Janney plays a subtly terrifying ruler of sorts. After an hour of wandering, though, the movie doesn’t really seem to know what to do with this turn of events or with the grisly truth they unveil.

It’s up to Brolin’s foul-mouthed performance and the handful of action sequences to enliven things, but even those elements come with a caveat or two. Brolin can perform roles like this in his sleep, which almost seems to be the case here, and as for the set pieces in The Dog Stars, it’s a little funny that they, with one exception and not much interest in variety, are all frenzied escapes from an invading force via prop plane.

Rating: ** (out of ****)