Adam Sandler’s next movie for Netflix takes him to space for what at first seems like, as far as space movies go, a down-to-earth exploration of the pressures long-term extraplanetary missions can put on even the most intrepid explorers. Then the Paul Dano spider shows up, and things only get more intense from there.
That spider is Hanuš, a cosmic spider from the dawn of time who senses the loneliness of Sandler’s solitary astronaut Jakub and helps him explore the beauty of the cosmos while also trying to get the man to reckon with his frayed marriage to the woman he left back on earth, Lenka (Carey Mulligan). It’s a fascinating hook for a story about the beauty of the cosmos matched only by the human desire for connection, although the arachnophobes among you may want to be careful hitting play on the trailer below, depending on if your fear of spiders is amplified by not just size—Hanuš is a good third-of-a-Sandler in scale—but also the voice of Paul Dano.
The film, directed by Johan Renck and based on Jaroslav Kalfař’s Spaceman of Bohemia, might seem like a surprising turn for Sandler, but it’s the latest in a line of films for Netflix that has seen the actor experiment with a variety of tones and genres—but sci-fi and giant spiders are definitely up there in just how far he’s pushing those experiments so far. Spaceman is set to begin streaming on Netflix from March 1.
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