The Martian

A survival film set on Mars. A mission is aborted because of a dust storm. As the crew evacuates, Mark Watney is struck by a piece of equipment and thrown clear; he is presumed dead and left behind. He wakes up. There is a quantity of food at the base and the next mission is four years away. From there the film is a list of problems. The injury, food, water, communication, power and distance, each taken in turn. Watney is a botanist. He grows potatoes inside the base and produces the water he needs by a chemical process. For communication he digs an old machine out of the desert and gets it working again. What the narrative is interested in is not space but method: the film explains every step, shows the arithmetic, and the character's greatest weapons are patience and record keeping. The Earth side is the second half of the narrative. An agency, a press conference, an engineering team, an orbital calculation and an offer of international help. The tone is unusually cheerful. Watney makes jokes to the camera log and the film keeps bleakness out on purpose. The source is a novel by Andy Weir. He first published it online in instalments and a publisher only came in afterwards. The Mars imagery was shot in Wadi Rum in Jordan and the interiors were built in Budapest. Because of its lighter side the film was assessed in the comedy category at an awards ceremony, which caused argument. Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig and Michael Peña are in the cast. Ridley Scott directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants optimistic science fiction grounded in science. Who it is not for: anyone looking for tension; the narrative almost never builds a real sense of danger.