"Ad Astra" and the Prodigal Father
The Prodigal Son. It’s a story many of us have heard before. A son who demands his inheritance leaves his father to pursue his lustful passions, and upon coming to ruin returns home to his father who is waiting with open arms and celebration. It’s the picture of what a father should be. Patient and long-suffering, forgiving and merciful, and perhaps most of all, present in the time of greatest need.
However, the inverse story seems to be the common thread among many in the world we live in now. Today it is often the father who leaves to pursue his passions, and rather than return it is the son who must chase after the father with feeble arms held open and expectant of disappointment. What effect does the frequency of The Prodigal Father have on future generations? How does a son cope with that abandonment in his own future relationships?
Enter Ad Astra. A film that wrestles with the space (literally and metaphorically) between a lost father and his alienated son. James Gray’s followup to 2016’s Lost City of Z, finds Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) battling the toxicity left behind from an overly-ambitious absentee father whose professions of love had never been passed outside of a computer screen. Whether it is in an off-script moment of speaking with his father candidly, fondly referencing his father’s love for old musicals and other cherished memories that bring Roy to tears, or if it is his moment of realization that his father, “...could only see what was not there and missed what was right in front of him,” it is made abundantly clear that Roy is deeply affected by his father’s absence. The psychological assessments that Roy must take on a consistent basis throughout the film, allow us to see into the mind of a man who cannot seem to stop hurting the people he cares about no matter what he does. A man who is so eerily self-aware of his own shortcomings that our hearts break for him as we continue to see and learn more about the seed of his struggle. How does a man who is constantly compared to his father’s legacy ever become their own person? How do you learn the importance of being present with those you love when all you’ve been shown is abandonment? Many will see Ad Astra as a commentary on toxic masculinity and the ways in which it passes on through generations. I don’t think those observations are wrong. However, there seems to be something more to it, something deeper than a father’s bad habit passing on to his approval-seeking son. There is a longing for true connection with someone who is supposed to care about you. While Roy’s father is far from the father presented in the story of The Prodigal Son, I can’t help but feel that’s what Roy was looking for, what he’s been looking for across billions and billions of miles. A father who didn’t leave, a father who taught him how to feel, a father who valued his son. Ad Astra doesn’t just speak to the importance of fatherly love, it shows how our connections with those around us, especially those we love, shape us into who we are, good or bad. And when it is bad, how far are we willing to go to try and heal the connection?
It is a vivid and humbling reminder of the joy that is to be found in having a family that is deeply and richly connected by the Heavenly Father. There is freedom to be found in the community of believers, a community that can stand as the bridge between broken relationships in our lives, and continually remind us of the coming glory where all brokenness will be made whole.
Rating (Out of 5 stars): ★★★★ ½
Where to watch: In Theatres
by Nathan Robertson