Written by Mark Duplass with frequent collaborator and first-time feature director Mel Eslyn, Biosphere<\/em>\u2019s 106 minutes are set entirely in one location with just two actors on screen. For Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K. Brown), there are worse scenarios than being alone at the end of the world with your oldest and best friend. After an unexplained apocalypse in the near future, these two men appear to be the last survivors on Earth, still alive thanks to the ingenuity of biochemist Ray and the structure he built. The biosphere has everything they need to survive (for now, at least): renewable food sources, electricity, water, a running track, books, and a Nintendo. However, when one of the systems begins to fail (thankfully, not the Nintendo), there\u2019s cause for panic, but there may also be reason to hope for their \u2014 and humanity\u2019s \u2014 survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Biosphere<\/em> is neither a big-budget post-apocalypse story or even a small one interested in the details of how these two men stay alive. This low-key comedy is far less nerdy than something like The Martian<\/em>, spending more of its running time and energy on the connection between these friends than the minutiae of what is sustaining them. Like Billy, we trust that Ray\u2019s efforts work \u2014 until they don\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Their relationship and how it evolves is the heart of the movie, but it isn\u2019t just about these two dudes. (It never is.) Biosphere<\/em> uses Billy and Ray\u2019s interactions to playfully poke at the larger concepts of male friendship and masculinity. It\u2019s equally smart and silly in its approach, never taking these questions too seriously while also not making them a joke. It has a light touch \u2014 sometimes to its own detriment when it just skims the surface of these issues \u2014 but the overall effect makes for an end-of-the-world movie that isn\u2019t a bummer. Instead, it has the warmth and humanity present in other Duplass products like Somebody Somewhere<\/em>, Togetherness<\/em>, Your Sister\u2019s Sister<\/em>, and Safety Not Guaranteed<\/em>, and there\u2019s more than a glimmer of hope present at the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Eslyn and Duplass have made a movie that uses its limited setting and minimal number of characters well, surprising the audience with what they do with so little. Despite this, Biosphere <\/em>meanders to the finish line, with some of its energy flagging in its latter half. For her first film as a director, Eslyn struggles with pacing; it feels like we\u2019re running in circles on the track that rings the biosphere, treading the same steps with these characters without really going anywhere, <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet that\u2019s partially by design. Ultimately Biosphere<\/em> isn\u2019t really about the destination so much as it is about the surprising changes that happen to these two friends along the way, even while they\u2019re literally stuck in the same place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Biosphere” is out Friday in theaters and on demand.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This lo-fi sci-fi comedy centers the evolving friendship between two men played by Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":594,"featured_media":20394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[1098],"class_list":["post-20392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/594"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/biosphere2-1024x429.jpeg\")
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However, that trust feels real and earned, thanks to both the script\u2019s characterization of Billy and Ray and the performances of Duplass and Brown. If either role was miscast or the actors\u2019 work were slightly off, it could all fall apart. But there\u2019s an easy, natural chemistry between them, making the changing dynamics of their life-long friendship feel real.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nB<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n