12 Brilliant Understated Movie Moments

Europa Report: “Better Call Housekeeping.”

For some reason known only to the gods of poor decisions (who were presumably caught on a break from allowing people to continue making Transformers movies), Sebastián Cordero’s first full English language film Europa Report went entirely under the radar in many places.

Beautifully shot on painstakingly detailed sets (which included built-in cameras in the space shuttle’s modules, so that the isolation of the actors would be increased by the fact that not even other film-crew were allowed inside), this semi-documentary/semi-found-footage sci-fi film about a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa is in equal parts highly restrained and dramatically terrifying.

The focus of the film really is the same as that of the crew – the possibility of what might lie under the ice on Europa and surviving the twenty month ordeal that it will take to get there and find out. But while the cast all skilfully convey the sort of detached, mental determination that is needed from astronauts for that sort of journey, the film also has an emotional heart, made clear by odd moments of every-day ordinary humanness.

Mid-way through a conversation with fellow engineer Andrei Blok (Michael Nyqvist) about whether or not finding a microbe on Europa would prove that life on Earth was at some point not alone in the Universe, James Corrigan (Sharlto Copley) pauses as he notices science officer Daniel Luxembourg (Christian Camargo) unpacking his personal effects in his tiny bed space. When Daniel complains that he can’t find his toothbrush, he is met with mock-serious but kindly chiding from his crewmates, with Andrei declaring that they should return to earth, and James declaring that Daniel had better call housekeeping.

The scene cuts away immediately – with a characteristic found-footage scrape of white noise – and returns to the more sombre events, but the light humour of this little exchange leaves a lasting effect. Representing the irony of how the mundane of life will always carry on no matter the circumstances, it is not the magnitude of the mission – or the drama that is to unfold towards the end – but just this little exchange that gives the audience one of the clearest impressions of the characters’ experience, and an invitation to engage with them in a way that will become even more tragically poignant later on.