Noah Hawley’s ambitious directorial debut centres around Lucy Cola (Natalie Portman), an astronaut longing to return to outer space’s socio-physical vacancy. In Lucy in the Sky’s opening scene, the title character stares at the earth, spellbound, asking her fellow astronaut for “just a few more minutes” in this existential utopia. The intensity of Portman’s gaze in this scene withholds as much as it conveys: behind the doubled lens of her space helmet and her corneas, she suggests both the ecstasy of space’s vacuity, and the looming horror of returning to society on Earth. The conflicting effects of this stare, echoed by the totalizing depth of outer space, schematize the film’s portrait of Lucy; for two hours we watch her oscillate (on Earth) between space’s ecstasy and the horrible mundaneness of her family.
Portman’s performance, despite a somewhat hackneyed accent, is a tour de force . While not necessarily a chameleon, Portman’s psychological vigour keeps her portrayal of Lucy on par with her greatest work. Lucy In the Sky’s problem, not unlike its protagonist’s, is that the powerful woman at its core is contorted, misread, and perhaps even vilified, at the hands of men with money. There is an important story to be told here, and there is a profound performance at the film’s centre. Yet, on the heels of compelling reinterpretations of gendered madness in America, such as Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! , I have to ask, “Is this how Lucy would have told her story?”. While she might not be a hero, Hawley’s gaze lacks sensitivity. A man can tell this story (plainly speaking: one did), but the pitying dejection with which Hawley depicts Lucy crying and running through the rain in a cheap wig begs the question: “might a director who identifies as a woman have shot this differently?”.
