A New World Both Thrilling and Terrifying Awaits in ‘Vesper’

Science fiction world-building is a tricky art. Create a futuristic reality vague on detail and technology, and the audience senses a half-hearted attempt. Include too many strange elements and an impenetrable lore, and you run the risk of alienating your audience. For many, Frank Herbert’s novel “Dune” stands as the pinnacle of both sci-fi craftsmanship and character-driven plotting. Other top-notch entries in the genre include “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep” (the basis of “Blade Runner”), the “Star Trek” series, and, of course, “Star Wars.” The new movie “Vesper” may not live up to those classics, but the richness of its imaginary milieu and singular features immediately envelop the viewer. Inspiredly the movie combines elements of sci-fi, a post-apocalyptic environment, fable, and even horror to create a unique yet also familiar setting. In its efforts to stave off ecological disaster, humans developed advanced genetic technology. The resulting bio-engineered organisms and microbes escaped from labs and summarily wiped out most edible plants, nearly all animals, and many people. Food is scarce, and seeds have been altered by elites in cities (known here as “citadels”) to produce only a single harvest. An androgynous and alien-looking young girl, Vesper, is our protagonist. Her disabled father communicates and sees beyond his immobilized state via a drone that accompanies her (and that looks a bit like Wilson the volleyball from “Cast Away”). Further scenes introduce her uncle, an enforcer within the ramshackle rural zone she inhabits, and beings called “jugs,” created as servants by the privileged citizenry within the citadels. It’s when Vesper finds an injured female jug known as Camellia in the forest that the plot moves beyond her day-to-day existence and the talk of seed experimentation. A surfeit of ideas runs throughout, including the viability of genetically modified plants, the ethics of utilizing robots and artificial intelligence as a workforce, and the friction between urban and rural values. Yet the filmmakers never lose sight of the characters. In one lovely scene, Vesper asks Camellia to mimic the sounds of the animals depicted in an old children’s book because she has never seen or heard them. In order for a movie with such strange textures to succeed, the performances have to feel lived-in, and the acting by the primarily British cast — including Raffiella Chapman as Vesper, newcomer Rosy McEwen as Camellia, Richard Brake as the father, and Eddie Marsan as the uncle — is uniformly excellent. The directing duo of Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper along with their cinematographer, Feliksas Abrukauskas, offer both widescreen wonders and digitally enhanced closeups that deftly define the movie’s visual reality.Occasionally, they do contradict the rules they’ve set for this imaginary world, such as when Vesper declares that they shouldn’t venture out at night but then the very next night they do, despite no urgent impetus. Still, the fantastical ambiance they summon up thrills and terrifies, much like its antecedents, including the works of David Cronenberg, James Cameron’s “Avatar,” and “The Lord of the Rings.” By the anti-climactic end, though, one wonders if “Vesper” would have made a more effective series than a one-off movie. Maybe some Hollywood executive will see this quiet but visionary indie and decide it deserves the expanded world-building only hinted at within the film.

A New World Both Thrilling and Terrifying Awaits in ‘Vesper’

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