Review: Biosphere

Post-apocalypse buddy comedies aren't quite as rare as you might think - having nobody else left is a great way to force two miss-matched types together - but they're not so common that Biosphere ever feels run-of-the-mill. Co-written by and co-starring Mark Duplass, who's best known for a string of mumblecore films with his brother Jay but has an extensive acting career as well, it's a film that starts out as one thing and turns into another. Which, as it turns out, is strangely appropriate.

Billy (Duplass) is the former President of the United States. Ray (Sterling K Brown) is his childhood friend, a scientist who was also his former advisor. They are the only two people left alive after an undefined catastrophe that it seems likely Billy had something to do with. The dome they live in is the only thing keeping them alive, though that's not quite correct: the fish they live off are also keeping them alive, and the last surviving female has just died. Uh oh.

What follows touches on a lot of issues and topics without ever really digging down onto any of them, which is possibly the point. At its heart it's a story about a connection between two people going through a lot of changes, and like any kind of real connection its going to take in a lot of external factors. While it seems like the set-up is ripe with possibilities to explore politics, race, sexuality and so on, for the most part they're only glanced at. It's a film about two people building a new world, not what destroyed the old one.

In this loose-limbed and sometimes ramshackle comedy, what matters most is the chemistry between the leads - it is a buddy movie after all, and Duplass and Brown are convincing buddies. Ray is seemingly the more progressive of the pair values-wise, but he has his limits; Billy is more of a "let's go with it" guy, which may not have been the best possible trait in a President. Together, they're well matched and have an easy charm: it's not hard to believe their lives now aren't all that different from back when the world wasn't a barren lifeless wasteland.

That said, as written the characters are more types than plausible people (there's a lot of talk that feels more like internet confessional speak than things people would actually say, but that's where the comedy lies). It's a common stumbling block in two-handers: if people don't overtalk, what is there to say? Thankfully the performances keep things grounded. Or as grounded as an end-of-the-world story gets. 

Sharply directed by co-writer Mel Eslyn, Biosphere turns out to be surprisingly optimistic: this is not a story where a potential food shortage leads directly to cannibalism. It takes a little while to get past the nagging feeling that the pair are exactly the kind of guys who created the situation that wiped out everyone else, but eventually the film earns its optimism and the duo earn their future. It's all about moving forward. As the saying goes, life finds a way. 

- Anthony Morris