'Biosphere' Review: An Ambitious Tale Of Two Best Friends [TIFF 2022]
The new film written by actor Mark Duplass had a surprise screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and it may just be his most ambitious to date.
"Life finds a way". You may remember this quote uttered from the mouth of one Jeff Goldblum in Steven Spielberg's action epic Jurassic Park but no other movie quite exemplifies the meaning of that quote more than Biosphere. The new film, from the mind of Mark Duplass quite literally quotes the line from Jurassic Park to help explain the irrational plot that hilariously attributes all of its random outcomes as a matter of science.
The plot is straightforward, two men are staying in a bio-dome after an unexplained catastrophic event. One, the former President of the United States, Billy (Mark Duplass) also coincidentally the man who caused this event, and his best friend and advisor, Ray (Sterling K. Brown) who was tasked to build the bio-dome in the first place. This apocalypse presumably left them both as the last two humans on earth, and in order to stay alive, Ray, a scientist, engineers a system in which a tank of fish somehow waters the plants so they have constant food supply. When the fish start to die off and their only female fish remaining dies, risking their survival, the story starts to take a hard turn. Much like Jurassic Park taught us, some species of animal (including fish) are able to change sexes to adapt to the environment, and that's exactly what one of the male fish starts to do. Ray and Billy are elated now that their lives will go on, but then Billy suddenly rushes to the bathroom in panic after having an epiphany of his own. By now… you probably get the picture. The rest of the story shakes out with the two grappling with the situation in hilarious dialogue that only the mind of Mark Duplass could conjure.
What this plot gives the audience is a wild ride but one that is unexpectedly very sincere and beautiful. From just reading the plot alone, what may feel like a long running gag throughout the film that merely pokes fun at Billy's character transitioning begins to transform into a much more intimate story about two friends who grow together. Ray changing his ideals and learning to remove his harsh conservative upbringing from who he wants to be as a person, and Billy who initially is scared of change but begins to truly start living. It’s a pivotal story in this day and age about gender and sexual identity that tells the watcher that no one needs to feel like they need to fit in to a certain category. The writing in the film correlates to real world discussions merely with the bizarre premise of two men in a post apocalyptic world living in a sphere.
Nobody in the business writes realistic dialogue better than Mark Duplass. He stated at the Q & A after the premiere screening at TIFF, that it all was based around this Super Mario Brothers dialogue in the film. That these two characters were always a team and neither was specifically Luigi nor Mario. They weren't stereotypical in any stretch in that they didn’t revert to tropes of male relationships you see in most films.
Credit has to be given to both Duplass and Brown who reportedly felt like they genuinely had been friends for life offscreen and were both incredible at showing the mental struggle their characters were going through. The directing is no small feat though. First time director and co-writer Mel Eslyn, who also acts as President of Mark and his brothers’ production company, does a beautiful job at choreographing such a small space to feel so spacious and homey. The film was a pandemic production that worked perfectly with only two cast members and literally working in a bubble as they constructed the bio dome in a studio.
The score was also brilliant by composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, making the setting feel ominous which worked perfectly with the twists and turns that the movie threw at you, while never feeling too heavy for the film's lighter moments.
The beauty of film is that every thought that goes throughout a person's mind on a day to day basis can always be translated into something beautiful. What Duplass and Eslyn have done is create a whole new world while still keeping to the reality we face today. Biosphere does an incredible job at engaging with this dialogue while never feeling preachy about the subject matter. Of course, the film remains hilarious through and through without diluting its message, and kudos must be given for that. Chances are the film won't get a theatrical release due to its odd plot and relatively small production baking, but it's very easily digestible for a movie where it’s predominantly just two people talking. Whether you want to laugh or you want to see a sincere story about gender, sexuality, a little bit of magic, and male friendship, Biosphere will help you find a way.