You know how you can tell an actor wants nothing more but to be incredible at their craft. I saw this with Denzel Washington in “Malcolm X,” with Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air,” with Bokeem Woodbine in “Jason’s Lyric,” with Ralph Fiennes in “Schindler’s List,” and now with Robert Pattinson in “High Life.”

You wanna know what I love…good storytelling. A narrative that doesn’t spoon feed you every minuscule thing about the plot.

You wanna know what else I love…innovation. Many movies have played with fractured order—shit Quentin Tarantino made himself an icon with “Pulp Fiction” and Christopher Nolan seems to enjoy f**king with his audiences’ senses with the manipulation of time (see “Memento” and “Dunkirk”).  Claire Denis, the director of “High Life,” used her canvas to create a beautiful ballad on screen where fractured chronology wasn’t specifically a staple, but an extra ingredient which elevated the narrative. 

You wanna know what else I appreciate… elements of film finding balance throughout. All in unison, each with its moment to shine. This film opened me up to a lot that I enjoy. Futuristic narrative, ✔️. Set in space,  ✔️. Brilliant acting, amen 🙏🏾. Intriguing cinematography, word.  Sprinkle in the bacon bits 🥓🥓 of amazing lighting and sound mixing with a menacing score, and voilà! A great 👏🏾ass 👏🏾 film.

And one more thing, this film had a rather long introduction, so much so that I didn’t even realize what phase of the story we were in until the opening credits popped up like 20 minutes in, which only featured the name of the film—nothing more.  Then the film proceeded into its gloriousness. Super dope!

Bless A24 for continuing to green light awesome screenplays. The diversity of their unique productions is admirable. I can only hope to work with them some day. 

The Actors:

Give Robert Pattinson his flowers now! He’s grown so much, bruh. 

Andre Benjamin still doesn’t do it for me as an actor. I can’t not see the iconic artist Andre 3000 whenever I see him in films, but some day maybe. He didn’t totally take me out of the film. I still enjoyed it, and it was a nice surprise because the opening credits didn’t reveal anything other than the title, but still. 

Mia Goth—shawty is fire, bruh 🔥🔥🔥.  She’s gonna be another one to look out for in the future. What a talent, and great balance to the story. There were moments in her acting that felt like I was watching a documentary about an unethical experiment. She created a persona that was tough, but angelic. Protective and ferocious. She was tender, but a fighter. I appreciated her complexity. She’s a beautiful artist. A young Tilda Swinton, if I may. 

My favorite scene:

…was Monte (played by Pattinson) meeting his baby girl for the first time, after finding out from the ship’s doctor that she was genetically his daughter. He’d seen this baby in the doctor’s arms for a while, but had no idea there was any connection to him. The way that Denis framed the shot, only showing his face swelling with emotion as he realizes it is him and the baby on this ship. That it’s him and his baby, not a baby, from now on on this floating-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-ass ship was beautifully portrayed. Man, Robert Pattinson is an actor, bruh. I need to continue to restate this because he really changed my perception of his acting abilities with this role. 

Also, I enjoyed the subtle way they emphasized Pattinson’s aging process; kudos to the makeup department for transforming the patch of gray hair to a more pronounced one as the story flips back and forth. And the age progression of his daughter—her as an infant, then BAM! hitting puberty, trying to understand religion, making decisions, debating her father about what cruelty means to her— was incredible.