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Spoiler Alert!
Much has been written about the themes woven into Ad Astra. Most reviewers have written about the flawed hero’s search for meaning or the inevitability of becoming your father. Others, like Brian Tallerico, write beautifully about the implicit religious allegory:
Earthly disasters possibly caused by a creator who has been absent as the world has lost hope — the religious allegory embedded in “Ad Astra” is crystal clear if you look for it, but never highlighted in a way that takes away from the film’s urgency. Science fiction is often about search for meaning, but this one literally tells the story of man’s quest to find He who created him and get some answers, including why He left us behind.
Beyond these grand narratives, Ad Astra drip feeds commentary on capitalism and consumerism, humanism, progress, and truth. However, nobody has yet written on the philosophy of home which underpins so much of the film’s brilliance.
Ad Astra — Latin for “to the stars” — asks us what we are willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of adventure. Here I’m not speaking of Roy McBride’s (Brad Pitt’s character) quest, but of the solar system colonisation the film depicts. It’s this cold realism which detaches us from the romantic notions of exploration. Indeed, that romantic vision is often spoken of with reference…
