VesperYou get a lot for your money. Even though it was made with a much smaller budget than other modern homes, sci-fi movies, the new film from directors Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper takes place in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world that feels more well-realized, vivid, and imaginative than any of Hollywood’s current cinematic universes do. While its premise doesn’t do much to sell Vesper as a unique entry into the dystopian sci-fi genre, either, it doesn’t take long for its fictional alternate reality to emerge as a striking new vision of the future.
The film’s opening shot throws viewers headfirst into a swampy, gray world that seems, at first, to be perpetually covered in fog. It’s an image that makes Vesper’s connections to other industrialized sci-fi films like StalkerIt is undeniably and palpably obvious. However, there is a catch: VesperIt emerges from the fogy wasteland it opens with, and begins to create a futuristic reality. The film uses rich colors and vibrant plants to breathe and reach out to any living thing they come across. While watching the film does, therefore, often feel like you’re being led on a tour through an industrial hellscape, it also feels, at times, like a trip down the rabbit hole and straight into Wonderland.
Similar to the land Alice famously fell into Vesper‘s dystopian future contains wonders both terrifying and comforting. Set during a period that is only referred to by the film’s opening crawl as the “New Dark Ages,” VesperIt takes place in a universe where the Earth was transformed long ago by various genetic and biological experiments that went wrong. These experiments, we’re told, were conducted in the hopes of preventing the planet’s ecological collapse. Instead, they merely accelerated it, sending the world and all of its inhabitants tumbling into a reality where trees expand and shrink with every breath they take, plants move, and synthetic, multi-colored slugs lurk beneath the Earth’s permanently swampy floor.
In the aftermath of the world’s off-screen collapse, humanity was essentially divided into two groups: the privileged elites who get to live within tall, encased structures known as “Citadels” and those who have to make ends meet in the wilds of the film’s dilapidated Earth. Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), the film’s eponymous lead, is a member of the latter group. Fortunately, Chapman’s Vesper has become quite adept at surviving in even the harshest of environments by the time that Buozyte and Samper’s film catches up with her. Vesper‘s opening sequence even sees its young heroine overcome several obstacles in order to save the life of her paralyzed father, Darius (Richard Brake), who uses a telepathic link to communicate with her via a flying drone that accompanies his daughter everywhere she goes.
Vesper and Darius’ lives are thrown into complete disarray, though, when the former unexpectedly stumbles upon an unconscious woman named Camellia (Rosy McEwen) in the woods. Vesper adopts Camelia (a stranger from one nearby Citadels) in hopes that she will be able help Vesper escape her creaky old home that her father and she have lived in for far too long. What Vesper doesn’t realize, however, is that Camelia is secretly involved in a conspiracy that not only puts some very dangerous targets on their backs but also catches the attention of Vesper’s abusive, controlling uncle, Jonas (Eddie Marsan).
Vesper, notably, takes its time getting into the conflict that led to Camelia’s chance encounter with Chapman’s resourceful young survivor. The film’s script, which Buozyte and Samper wrote with Brian Clark, largely prioritizes atmosphere and world-building over plot progression. The film’s opening 30 minutes is devoted to atmosphere and world-building. Vesper are more concerned with setting up the film’s futuristic world, as well as its young heroine’s place in it, than they are with generating conflict. This may lead to some viewers feeling VesperThey move too slowly than they would prefer.
That said, it’s easy to see why the film’s creative team was more interested in Vesper‘s intricate sci-fi world than in its straightforward and predictable story. Not only are many of the film’s plot twists fairly obvious and easy to predict, but Vesper’s limited production budget also prevents it from making its third act as action-packed as its story demands. As a result, while there’s never a moment when Vesper truly loses hold of its viewers, the film’s measured pace and ultimately subversive finale do make the smallness of its scope unavoidably clear.
Both Richard Brake and Eddie Marsan bring an air of authority to the film. Vesper. Marsan, in particular, is exceptionally well-cast as Jonas, a man who takes immense pride in the crude ways he’s managed to carve out a space for himself in Vesper’s dystopian world. Opposite him, Raffiella Chapman turns in a youthful but quietly assured performance as Vesper, one that manages to highlight her character’s innate, childlike innocence without ever short-changing her abilities or intellect.
Also, while Vesper’s smaller production budget does frequently prevent Buozyte and Samper from exploring the film’s story as deeply as they probably would have liked, the directors do still manage to fill it with consistently memorable images. Vesper and Camelia are seen climbing onto various tables and chairs to avoid touching a biological weapon. This yellow mold is rapidly spreading and covering everything it touches.
The sequence is reminiscent of scenes from movies like “The Godfather” Minority ReportAnd AnnihilationThe fact that VesperThe film’s ability to seem like it is inspired by those films is yet another sign of its ability to overcome its financial limitations. For a film that ultimately isn’t able to take its own plot as far as it probably should have, Vesper still manages to tell a visually striking and imaginative story, which is more than can be said for many of Hollywood’s recent sci-fi blockbusters.
Vesper This film is available on VOD and in theaters.
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