Vesper (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Opening text tells us the state of the world, sometime in the future, when humanity's efforts to stop ecological crisis backfired, destroying the world's edible plants and devastating the human and animal populations. In this new Dark Age, oligarchs rule "citadels," closed and protected cities, while the outside world starves and scavenges what it can. The citadels trade goods, including seeds for produce that only yield one harvest. To help with the work, scientists have also developed Jugs, androids meant to be laboring slaves.

With this thick science fiction setting, I had no idea what to expect from Vesper, a European indie genre flick that arrived in the States with almost no fanfare. I'm not really of the opinion that "science fiction" is a genre so much as an aesthetic, but this film is generically a coming-of-age story for its title character, a young teenaged girl who lives in the forest with her paralyzed father Darius. In the dystopian, post-apocalyptic world, even the forest around her home is dangerous, so as she daily goes out to scrounge for seeds and food, as well as scavenge for power sources and materials to keep her house running and her father alive, we see her resourcefulness and determination shine through. She may be young, but she's already a hardened survivor. But she also wants love, and knows she needs companionship and care, as she clearly misses her mother, who left some time ago to join a group of "Pilgrims," though we are not told exactly what that means. Based on the feudal system of society, we can guess they are searching for life elsewhere more sustainable and free.

The film, written and directed by duo Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Sampler, is not your typical sci-fi experience. While it features more than its share of clunky dialogue, an unwelcome amount of genre lingo, and contrived plot points to push the whole thing forward while offering exposition, it also does some unexpected things. For such a young heroine in Vesper, the film works to emotionally and psychologically mature her before our eyes, underscoring the harsh truth that life can't be fully planned or controlled and that her struggles will be a part of her life in perpetuity. The playing field is far from level and almost never fair. As such, the film eschews token empowerment for its characters (though its heroes are notably young and female while its antagonists are mostly older men) and works hard to avoid much sense of hope or validation. Indeed, all of Vesper's actions are based on her own observations and scientific experiments on seeds, and we're never really given the option to entertain the fact that she is right. She is very possibly misguided or simply wrong, but it's her determined pursuit of hope that wins us over. It's really not until the very end -- I mean about the last three minutes or so -- that a tiny glimmer of hope shines into the film. And even then, it's only after the very worst has occurred to everyone Vesper cares about.

Which isn't to say many people. The bulk of the film is a series of unfortunate events that involve Vesper's predatory and violent uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan), a crashed scientist's ship, invading citadel soldiers, and experiments to "unlock" seeds for more harvests. The actors are all fine, though acting is clearly not the point of this movie (nor is the dialogue). Vesper is best experienced as a surrealist fantasy, a visual trip through Cronenbergian production design replete with tendrils and mucus and membranes and organic fluids and violent bugs; warning for anyone with trypophobic aversions, this movie's textures are weirdly and disturbingly specific.

I don't want to spoil the specifics of the plot, but Marsan's character is clearly an amalgamation of what lengths desperate white men will go to for survival in positions of power, and his threat is at once mortal, material, sexual, and spiritual. Vesper won't be entirely alone in her tribulations, as she rescues a mysterious citadel refugee named Camellia (Rosy McEwan), whose partnership with Vesper is cleverly written and acted to avoid sentimental romantic or familial pitfalls. Their relationship is fairly unique in the genre, and it's beautiful to behold. The film's other strengths are primarily visual, with arresting design from props and set dressing to costumes and restrained use of digital effects. But it won its way into my head by virtue of not force-feeding us the typical YA dystopian journey to heroism; Vesper makes us survive alongside a young person who tries hard to succeed through hypotheses and experiments all on her own, while fearing that every step she takes could prove disastrous.