Taglines: Every moment counts.
The spaceship, Starship Avalon, in its 120-year voyage to a distant colony planet known as the “Homestead Colony” and transporting 5,259 people has a malfunction in two of its sleep chambers. As a result two hibernation pods open prematurely and the two people that awoke, Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) and Aurora Dunn (Jennifer Lawrence), are stranded on the spaceship, still 90 years from their destination.
Passengers is an American romantic science fiction thriller film directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Jon Spaihts. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. The film was released in the United States on December 21, 2016, by Columbia Pictures
Principal photography on the film began in September 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia. Filming occasionally took place for full days with a bulk of the shooting done around the two leads only. Lawrence got herself really drunk for the sex scene – her first ever – which she said was “bizarre” and “awkward” and was followed by anxiety and guilt.
About the Story
The Starship Avalon is on a voyage transporting over 5000 colonists to Homestead II, a planet so far from Earth the journey takes 120 years. The colonists are placed into hibernation for the journey, but a malfunction wakes up a passenger, mechanical engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), 90 years early.
After a year of isolation with only Arthur (Michael Sheen), a robot bartender, for company, he notices beautiful writer Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) in one of the pods and learns about her life by viewing the video she recorded for her passenger profile. Jim struggles with the morality of waking Aurora up for company, but gives in and wakes her up manually.
Initially, Jim lies to Aurora, blaming her early awakening on a pod malfunction like his. Aurora is distraught when she realizes that she may well grow old and die on the ship before the Avalon reaches Homestead II, but eventually accepts her situation. After Jim asks Aurora for a date, they grow closer. A year after Aurora’s awakening, Jim is about to offer Aurora a ring when Arthur, misunderstanding an offhand comment by Jim, tells Aurora Jim is directly responsible for her predicament.
This revelation traumatizes Aurora, leading her to alternately berate, shun and physically attack Jim. Soon after, however, another pod failure causes Gus (Laurence Fishburne), a Chief Deck Officer, to wake up. The three discover multiple failures in the ship’s systems because of a failed component overloading the other components. Gus attempts to fix it with Jim and Aurora’s help, but it is soon apparent that the malfunction of his pod’s life support has fatally sickened him.
Before he dies, he passes on his ID to Jim and Aurora in order to allow them to access staff areas and repair the ship, which is experiencing more severe failures each day. Jim realizes he will need to vent a fusion reactor by opening the vent door from outside the spaceship; Aurora helps him while admitting she is terrified of the possibility of losing him and having to live on the ship alone. Aurora and Jim, both withstanding extreme heat from the malfunctioning reactor, work together to successfully vent the reactor.
However, using a heat shield against the reactor fire Jim becomes untethered from the ship and damages his spacesuit in the process, losing his oxygen supply. A desperate effort from Aurora brings Jim back into the ship, but Jim needs multiple medical interventions and returns to consciousness only after Aurora has broken down believing he is dead. Jim, reunited with Aurora, learns of a way to send her back into hibernation using Gus’ ID. Hoping to make amends, he offers her a chance to go back to sleep, but she realizes only one of them can do this and she would never see Jim again if she chose to proceed.
Passengers (2016)
Directed by: Morten Tyldum
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, Jamie Soricelli, Kimberly Battista, Aurora Perrineau, Shelby Taylor Mullins, Kristin Brock
Screenplay by: Jon Spaihts
Production Design by: Guy Hendrix Dyas
Cinematography by: Rodrigo Prieto
Film Editing by: Maryann Brandon
Costume Design by: Jany Temime
Set Decoration by: Gene Serdena
Music by: Thomas Newman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexuality, nudity and action / peril.
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: December 21, 2016
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