High Life (18)
Directed by Claire Denis

A FATHER and his baby daughter battle to survive in complete isolation in this twisted space saga, which promises more than it delivers.

As the flashbacks slowly but surely unfold, you learn how Monte (Robert Pattinson) and the baby (an adorable Scarlett Lindsey) come to be on board a now empty spacecraft. He was a member of a crew of death-row inmates led by Dr Dibs (Juliette Binoche), who have agreed to go on a one-way trip to a black hole in exchange for their lives.

Evoking Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky’s Solaris, Claire Denis’s space drama is more space porn as the characters are violently attacked by their crew mates and defiled by the good doctor, all in the name of science and creation. Dr Dibs relieves her sexual tension in a special “play room” worthy of Fifty Shades of Grey, which makes disturbing viewing.

Pattinson gives a compelling performance as a quiet and brooding man who has taken a vow of chastity but who finds himself having fathered a child without his consent and which results in his undoing, while Binoche is sublime as the deliciously mad and single-minded Dr Dibs — space’s very own Dr Strangelove.

The film never fills you in on any of the crew members’ back stories but that isn’t really necessary.  All you need to know is that they are violent criminals cooped up in a confined space and none of them  survive.

Exquisitely shot and with fine performances all round, this initially fascinating drama eventually plunges into Game of Thrones incest territory, not something that will be to the taste of many.