Plot: After the collapse of Earth’s ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed father, meets a woman with a secret who will force her to use her wits, strengths and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of having a future.
Review: From the moment I saw the trailer for Vesper, I was entranced. Echoing the dreamlike films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Luc Besson, Vesper stuck out thanks to a distinct looking visual style that made use of physical sets, locations, and special effects rather than green screen and CGI. The tangible quality of the film comes through in the well-acted production that builds a massive fictional world and remains engaging for audiences of all ages and across all languages. Vesper is a beautiful and solemn movie that stands out because it looks more real than most big-budget movies while delivering a story that resonates more deeply as well.
A post-apocalyptic landscape decimated by climate change and controlled by a totalitarian regime, the set-up of the backstory of Vesper mimics countless recent movies, animes, comic books, and video games. An opening title card explains that the wealthy control massive cities called Citadels and parse our seeds to the poor who can only plant them a single time. The class divide is a major factor in the tale which centers on 13-year-old Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) who lives with her paralyzed father Darius (Richard Brake) whose voice and mind emanate from her drone companion. When Vesper comes across a crashed ship containing Camellia (Rosy McEwen), her quest begins to survive against the odds.
Over the two-hour running time of Vesper, we see a world that looks every bit as realistic and feasible as Denis Villeneuve’s Dune or Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian. Filmed entirely on location in Lithuania and a fraction of the budgets of the aforementioned studio productions, Vesper is enhanced in various scenes with CGI applied to add ships or plant life rather than creating entire landscapes against a green screen. Even Vesper’s drone was an actual drone used on set along with CGI enhancements which echoes the effect of C-3PO and R2-D2 being on the set of Star Wars. There are multiple moments in Vesper that echo the 1977 George Lucas film, both in regards to the tone of the film as well as the bootstrap effort to realize a fully immersive future within the constraints of a budget.
Writer-directors Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper (Vanishing Waves) spent six years developing the script and production of Vesper. Watching the film, it is easy to see that the effort was put into not only the visual elements but the intricacy of the story as well. Raffiella Chapman is excellent in the title role and conveys an almost ethereal innocence that is balanced by a hardened shell from dealing with a world that can destroy the weak. Chapman is complimented by veterans like Richard Brake and Eddie Marsan who have both appeared in countless genre offerings of all scales and sizes. Chapman carries the entire film on her shoulders, even in the moments where the pacing lags a bit. Vesper follows a traditional three-act structure with each one feeling tonally different from the rest. As such, there are many moments where the story shifts substantially from action to scifi to fantasy and even elements of horror. It also concludes with a substantial action sequence that is pretty impressive in its own right.
What also struck me about Vesper was the scale of everything from the score by Dan Levy to the cinematography of Feliksas Abrukauskas. While the movie does have a very European aesthetic, it reminds me so much of what is lacking in many modern genre films. There is so much world-building in this movie that never feels like it is solely created to set up sequels. Buozyte, Samper, and co-writer Brian Clark manage to make a sprawling yet intimate film that is equal parts space fantasy and Dickensian drama. Few live-action movies are able to accomplish what Vesper puts on screen and that is the highest praise for a movie that doesn’t look artificial at all.
Vesper is indebted to the genre films that came before it, especially City of Lost Children and even the works of David Cronenberg. A fairy tale that feels too mature for small children but never pandering to young adults, Vesper is just the right amount of scary and eerie and the type of film we rarely get to see anymore. This is a special science fiction film because there is nothing else remotely like it. From the star-making lead performance from Raffiella Chapman to the astounding blend of practical effects and CGI, Vesper is a movie that deserves to be discovered by as wide of an audience as possible. This is a smart film made by smart filmmakers that can appeal to the most ardent cinephiles in equal measure with general audiences looking for a thrilling escape at the movies. This is a great movie.