If you’re looking for a Netflix film to snuggle up in front of this weekend, you’ve likely cast your eyes across Stowaway, the latest thriller on the streaming network.
Starring Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim and Shamier Anderson, Stowaway follows a team of astronauts heading to Mars over the course of two years.
Suddenly, their plans are thrown into disarray when a man (Anderson) falls out of a roof panel. Who is he, and how will the team handle the introduction of such a curveball?
Here is the thing – Stowaway is not the kind of thriller you’re likely expecting it to be. Without giving too much away, because there ARE surprises that do play out fairly well, this is a slow burn and it’s less about dark secrets, and more to do with being stuck in a crisis situation, if that makes sense.
As always, Toni Collette and Daniel Dae Kim deliver outstanding performances. Anna Kendrick isn’t known for her dramas, but she’s also a welcome addition here – and Shamier Anderson, a relative newcomer on-screen if you’re not across Wynonna Earp, is fantastic as the stowaway.
But it’s pretty clear the idea was to lean on some stellar performances, and while they are excellent performances, they can’t save a slow-moving plot that is at least 30 minutes too long, and a lack of tension.
I didn’t find myself connecting to any of the characters, except perhaps our stowaway, Michael Adams, purely because the idea of being stuck in space for two years terrifies me.
There are many calls back to Earth where we aren’t privy to the Earth-side half of the conversation, which doesn’t add tension, it just makes it seem like the production team was trying to minimise costs by not hiring voice actors.
Most importantly, a space thriller needs to thrill. While you can lean on the vastness of space and the fear that incites to some degree (think Gravity, Alien) we need more than just a sense of claustrophobia to hook us, otherwise there isn’t much happening to distract from a snail-paced plot.
The threat in Stowaway didn’t land for me. It may have been because I was expecting a fast-paced thriller, and was instead met with a slow burn about choice and humanity.
Would I suggest you watch Stowaway? It’s well-made and well-acted, so it’s not all bad here. I just found it boring, to be honest. But perhaps if you go in expecting a simmering tension instead of suspense, you’ll have a better experience.
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