Troop Zero

Rural Georgia, 1977. Nine-year-old Christmas Flint is obsessed with space; her mother is dead and her father is a lawyer who loses his cases. She hears about a competition to be recorded on the disc NASA is sending into space, with the winning regional scout troop getting its voices on it. Christmas puts her own team up against the troop that would not have her: a squad made of the children nobody wants. The touching part is what the goal actually is. Christmas does not want a prize or a badge; she wants her voice to stay out in space, because she believes that is where her mother went. The film says this in one line and does not dwell on it. The directing pair is Bert and Bertie, from a screenplay by Lucy Alibar. Mckenna Grace plays Christmas, Viola Davis plays Rayleen, the secretary who takes the troop on, Jim Gaffigan plays the father and Allison Janney plays Massey, who runs the rival troop. The premise is real: the Golden Record placed on the Voyager probes was prepared to carry the sound of humanity, and it left in 1977. Amazon Studios produced it. It screened at Sundance in 2019 and went out on 17 January 2020. Who it is for: anyone who likes family films and stories about teams assembled from outcast children. Who it is not for: anyone looking for originality. The shape is familiar, the outcome is settled from the start, and several supporting characters get one trait each.