Walt (Cole Sprouse) has applied for the Mars Program 37 times, desperate for adventure and escape from his humdrum life. Unfortunately, his application has been rejected every single time. He finds himself spurred into action when he hits it off with Ginny (Emily Rudd) the night before her flight to Mars, and decides to stow away and follow her there. On the same flight is Sophie, who is on her way to reunite with her long-distance boyfriend Calvin (Mason Gooding). Sophie and Walt have met before, and due to certain circumstances, she ends up having to cover for him and help him till they get to Mars.
If you’ve watched the To All The Boys series, you already know what a rom-com queen Condor is. Sprouse has also played a romantic lead before in Five Feet Apart, so the pair are on known terrain here, and manage to liven up a pretty standard screenplay into something quite adorable. Condor and Sprouse are individually so charismatic that it allows their characters to have easy chemistry with each other. I do feel the romantic spaces could have been developed a little more, but since Sophie was practically shackled to another man for the entirety of the film, things had to be kept pretty chaste between the pair.
Sophie’s neurotic, quirky, intelligent, resourceful, while Walt’s her opposite – impulsive, not the brightest tool in the shed, though he is insightful about certain things. Walt holds up a magnifying glass to Sophie’s relationship, asking her questions she doesn’t want to answer. After all, she’s never imagined a life without Calvin. But it seems Calvin is satisfied to live without her. He’s settled down in Mars, taken a job there, and shows no indication of ever wanting to return back to Earth. That’s not what Sophie wants. She wants to tackle the waste problem back on Earth and doesn’t look at her life there as the past despite Calvin’s ardent attempts to persuade her to leave it all behind.
There’s definitely a wider commentary here about the treatment of Earth, and how everyone’s just moved to Mars to get away from the problems that plague the planet. Leon Kovi (Zach Braff), an eccentric billionaire who pioneered the Mars Program, could do so much for Earth if he chose to, but he decided to invest in space travel instead. I mean, it’s pretty on the nose here who Kovi’s meant to parallel in real life.
Walt’s mediocrity is constantly emphasized throughout the film. He isn’t special, so he should stick to the average life he’s meant to live. We are brainwashed into thinking that to achieve something or to have adventures, we need to be special or talented in some way. Everyone’s striving to be somebody that we forget to just be. We look at our dreams as extensions of ourselves, and wrap ourselves so tightly within their tendrils that they begin to shape who we are. Walt wanted to be special, and he thought making it to Mars would make him special. But that’s not how it works: we are not our dreams but rather the fixed point that lies beyond them.
They offer something to work towards, to pursue, but at the end of the day, investing in other people and our relationships gives us so much more – that’s what existence should be devoted to.
READ NEXT: 10 Best Romance Movies of the 2010s
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
