50 Essential Sci-Fi Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

With High Life, Claire Denis launches R-Patz, Juliette Binoche, and Mia Goth into space for a squirmingly uncomfortable time. Putting a disjointed narrative to use against the mise en scene of cold space, cold light, and cold people, a series of striking images is forced upon us across a 110-minute runtime, which begins in the credible and descends into the kind of arthouse insanity we might expect from Denis.

Pattinson plays Monte, a criminal astronaut aboard a square ship, sent by humanity on a doomed mission to seek an alternative energy source for the planet from the edge of a black hole. So far, so Interstellar. But the crew Monte shares his space with each have their own agenda, controlled by the scheming Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche), who leads experiments on them with the intention of achieving artificial insemination in space.

It's sexual but not sexy, and lit or filtered with every colour on the spectrum, but never colourful. And there is violence beginning to end, as, contrary to Kubrick’s thesis in 2001, mankind seems to shrink within itself and devolve back to apes the further it journeys into space. The weird juxtaposition of grand space visuals against sets that look like the storage cupboard at work only adds to the overall sense of unease that High Life delights in, and yet even after all this, it manages to end on a hopeful note.