''Stowaway'' is a 2021

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

thriller

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by

Joe Penna Jônatas "Joe" de Moura Penna (born May 29, 1987) is a Brazilian musician and filmmaker best known from both his YouTube channel MysteryGuitarMan and his feature films. He resides in Los Angeles, California. YouTube Penna maintains the YouTub ...

, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ryan Morrison. The film stars

Anna Kendrick Anna Cooke Kendrick (born August 9, 1985) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including a Satellite Award, five Teen Choice Awards, three MTV Movie Awards, and nominations for an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award a ...

Daniel Dae Kim Daniel Dae Kim (born Kim Dae-hyun ( ko, 김대현); August 4, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Jin-Soo Kwon in ''Lost'', Chin Ho Kelly in ''Hawaii Five-0'', Gavin Park in ''Angel'', and Johnny Gat in the ''Saints Row'' ...

Shamier Anderson Shamier Anderson (born May 6, 1991) is a Canadian actor. He is known for playing U.S. Deputy Marshal Xavier Dolls on the television series ''Wynonna Earp (TV series), Wynonna Earp'' and ''Invasion (2021 TV series), Invasion.'' Background Ander ...

, and

Toni Collette Toni Collette Galafassi (born Toni Collett; 1 November 1972) is an Australian actress, producer, singer, and songwriter. Known for her work in television and independent films, she has received various accolades throughout her career, includ ...

. A co-production of the United States and Germany, it premiered on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

in select countries on April 22, 2021.

Plot

The crew of MTS-42, a two-year mission to

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

, consists of Mission Commander Marina Barnett, biologist David Kim, and medical researcher Zoe Levenson. After taking off from Earth, the

upper stage A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of another stage; a ''parallel'' stage is ...

of their launch vehicle is connected by 450 meter long tethers to the ship's main hull, acting as a counterweight for

inertia Inertia is the idea that an object will continue its current motion until some force causes its speed or direction to change. The term is properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his first law ...

-based

artificial gravity Artificial gravity is the creation of an inertial force that mimics the effects of a gravitational force, usually by rotation. Artificial gravity, or rotational gravity, is thus the appearance of a centrifugal force in a rotating frame of r ...

. Shortly after takeoff, Barnett discovers launch support engineer Michael Adams, an accidental

stowaway A stowaway or clandestine traveller is a person who secretly boards a vehicle, such as a ship, an aircraft, a train, cargo truck or bus. Sometimes, the purpose is to get from one place to another without paying for transportation. In other cas ...

, unconscious between two modules, entangled with a device that scrubs

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

from the air on the ship. As he falls, the device is inadvertently destroyed. The crew is forced to use emergency

lithium hydroxide Lithium hydroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula LiOH. It can exist as anhydrous or hydrated, and both forms are white hygroscopic solids. They are soluble in water and slightly soluble in ethanol. Both are available commercially. While ...

canisters to scrub from the air. Unfortunately, the canisters cannot sustain the extra load. Barnett orders David to immediately cultivate his algae experiment on the ship, rather than at the Martian colony, as planned. Only half of the algae survive, providing just enough oxygen for a third crew member. Without another oxygen supply, the crew of four will

asphyxia Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can i ...

te weeks before reaching Mars. Barnett asks mission control for a solution that will save all four passengers, but the only option—an untested

EVA Eva or EVA may refer to: * Eva (name), a feminine given name Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Eva (Dynamite Entertainment), a comic book character by Dynamite Entertainment * Eva (''Devil May Cry''), Dante's mother in t ...

(spacewalk) to climb the tethers and recover

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an applica ...

from the spent upper stage rocket—is deemed too risky. Barnett and David begin to come to terms with sacrificing Michael, but Zoe convinces them to wait ten days for mission control to think of another solution. After three days, David breaks rank to explain the situation to Michael, offering him a painless lethal injection. Michael nearly takes his own life, but Zoe stops him and convinces him to hold out for a while longer. She insists on climbing the tethers to retrieve the liquid oxygen. David reveals that the rest of the algae has died, leaving only enough oxygen for two. Now facing the death of two passengers, he agrees to join her on the climb. Zoe and David perform the EVA and

jury rig In maritime transport terms, and most commonly in sailing, jury-rigged is an adjective, a noun, and a verb. It can describe the actions of temporary makeshift running repairs made with only the tools and materials on board; and the subsequent r ...

a solution to fill two cylinders, which is enough to sustain two more passengers. Deadly radiation from a high-energy solar flare—

coronal mass ejection A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a significant release of plasma and accompanying magnetic field from the Sun's corona into the heliosphere. CMEs are often associated with solar flares and other forms of solar activity, but a broadly accepted ...

—forces them to leave one of the cylinders behind. They make it back to the ship, but due to a critical equipment failure, the single oxygen cylinder is lost. After regrouping, they realize that the large tank continues to leak oxygen due to the improvised connection, and that if one person exposes themselves to the lethal radiation to retrieve the cylinder left behind on the first attempt, the other three can survive. Marina must survive to pilot the ship, but the other three all volunteer to make the sacrifice. As Michael is untrained and both he and David have families back home, Zoe ultimately insists on doing it herself. She manages to fill and return the cylinder to the ship before succumbing to radiation poisoning. She spends her final moments outside the ship, gazing at a faint Mars amongst the stars.

Cast

as Zoe Levenson, the ship's doctor *

as Marina Barnett, the ship commander *

as David Kim, the ship's biologist *

as Michael Adams, a launch support engineer and the eponymous stowaway

Production

In October 2018, it was announced

was cast to appear in

's next film, starring as a medical researcher. In January 2019,

was added to the cast, in the role of the ship commander. In May,

was cast as the titular stowaway, and

joined as the ship's biologist. Filming began on June 11, 2019, in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

and wrapped after 30 days.

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

and science communicator

Scott Manley Scott Park Manley (born 31 December 1972) is a Scottish YouTube personality, gamer, programmer, astrophysicist and DJ. On his YouTube channel, he makes videos discussing space-related topics and news, mainly concerning up-to-date rocket sci ...

was a consultant for the film.

Release

In November 2018,

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) is a specialty film division of Sony Pictures. The company specializes in acquiring and producing films for a wide variety of distribution platforms. History The group became a stand-alone division of ...

acquired international distribution rights to the film, excluding the United States. In December 2020,

acquired distribution rights to the film, acquiring territories previously purchased by Sony, with

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...

set to distribute in Canada. The film released on April 22, 2021, except for German-speaking countries where the Netflix release will follow showings in cinemas which will happen at an indeterminate time due to the ongoing pandemic.

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Stowaway'' holds an approval rating of 76% based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 6.50/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Pacing problems prevent ''Stowaway'' from fully engaging, but it's distinguished by its thoughtful, well-acted approach to a story built on an excruciating moral dilemma."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 63 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * {{Netflix title 2021 films 2021 thriller drama films 2021 science fiction films 2020s science fiction drama films 2020s science fiction thriller films 2020s survival films 2020s English-language films American thriller drama films American science fiction drama films American science fiction thriller films American space adventure films American survival films German thriller drama films German science fiction drama films German science fiction thriller films English-language German films English-language Netflix original films Films about astronauts Films set on spacecraft Films set in outer space Films shot in Cologne Films shot at Bavaria Studios Mars in film Wild Bunch (company) films 2020s American films