Europa Report is probably the best damn realistic space exploration thriller I’ve ever seen. It’s story reminds me a lot of the incredible historical tales from the initial western explorations of the source of the Nile, the interior of Australia, or the depths of the Amazon. It feels incredibly authentic in every way, most strikingly in how it gets across the sense of ineffable isolation the explorers feel. I found the film quietly gripping from beginning to end. The genera of science fiction action thrillers is a real black hole nowadays – it’s either gross out monster movies or cowboys and indians crap – so the sudden emergence of a film of this quality in this genera is extremely welcome news.

Europa Report is shot as documentary footage of a manned mission to Jupiter, launched to investigate its moon Europa for possible primitive life under its ice crust. In the beginning of the film (8 months into the journey) the ship looses contact with Earth, and the film proceeds to fill in what happened both before and after this event with video footage from the ship’s cameras, weaving in technical background information in the form of interviews with the leaders of the expedition back on Earth. It sounds like this narrative structure would prove rather clunky, but actually its execution of all this is somehow quite seamless.

The film involves a lot of science and engineering talk, but it is so well-written it never feels heavy and it very efficiently and painlessly keeps the viewer understanding all the technical aspects of what is transpiring. This allows the movie to hold constant dramatic tension without ever needing to manipulate the audience or take the story in any direction the slightest bit unbelievable – it unleashes the exquisite everyday drama of exploration, in a highly technical setting. This is a seriously disciplined movie, directed beautifully – you hardly feel like you are watching a movie at all. Very impressive stuff indeed.

Despite the film’s necessary emphasis on science and engineering concepts, it manages to also feature a wonderfully laid out cast of characters, who are developed amazingly well given how little time is devoted to it. A big reason for this is that the casting of the crew (all of them complete no-names) was absolutely outstanding, all of them turning in performances so compelling that you bond with each of them despite the relative lack of interpersonal dialog. It’s a true ensemble masterpiece.

Europa Report is a total breath of fresh air. It’s an outstanding and memorable movie. I highly recommend it.