Clara (2018)
(On TV, September 2022) Science fiction drama Clara has a running time of 105 minutes, 100 if you take out the credits. I liked about 98 of those minutes—but, unfortunately, not the last two. If you happen to think (as I do) that “Science Fiction” should also be a genre about the process, trade-offs and drama of the scientific process in addition to spaceships-pew-pew spectacle, then it’s certainly a movie that talks a good game. Much of this intimate low-budget drama takes place between two people: a driven astronomer looking for habitable exoplanets, and an artist hired as an assistant who eventually becomes something more: No, not just a girlfriend but a low-key manic pixie dream girl whose purpose in life and death is to teach the male protagonist a life-improving lesson. Regrettable use of clichés aside, there’s a lot to like in Clara for hard-SF types: thanks to writer-director Akash Sherman’s attention to detail, scientific details ring true, the stakes are credible, the portrayal of a “rational” protagonist driven mad is interesting, and the film makes few concessions to dumbing itself down for audiences, trusting viewers to follow along. There’s enough of a romantic core to provide a scaffolding for the scientific themes, and the relationship is nicely done (the film’s two leads, Patrick J. Adams and Troian Bellisario, are married in real life). Which isn’t saying that it’s all good—for all of the slick Science Fiction aspects to the film, it’s on far more contrived grounds when it comes to human drama. But then there are the final two minutes, in which a film having already delivered on its promise keeps going into something far more fantastic, going out of its sway to undo the rigour of the previous 98 minutes. I’m as much a fan of slingshot endings as anyone else, but it’s not appropriate in Clara’s case, and it makes the entire film feel much cheaper than if it had stuck to its initial intentions. (The film’s production history suggests that the ending was revised by the actress, so that gives us someone to blame.) It’s really too bad, because for most of its duration, Clara is the kind of SF film I want to see more often—something down to earth, engaged with science and not afraid to go to the end of its idea. But that last two minutes? Unnecessary.