As horrific as this past year was for most of us, 2020 will go down as the year when science prevailed. This past year brought new, effective vaccines, the potential discovery of life-preserving levels of phosphine on Venus’ surface, and the finding of more bodies of salt water on Mars.
Discoveries like these have effectively catapulted the theme of space exploration into our time’s pop culture—think Christopher Nolan’s visually stunning Interstellar or James Gray’s insightful Ad Astra. The next stellar space movie in line is Jillian Acreman’s insightful feature debut, Queen of the Andes. What this movie does so well is take the topic of space exploration and expand in into a beautiful film guaranteed to keep its audience thinking long after the end credits have run.
Set in the not-too-distant future, where the government is involved in an experimental, and controversial, plan to colonize Mars, Queen of the Andes focuses manly on biological scientist Pilar (Bhreagh MacNeil), who, because of her groundbreaking work, has been selected to take part in the next mission to Mars. The film follows Pilar as she goes through one last day on Earth.
The best part of the movie is MacNeil’s acting. Her performance as a young woman trying to navigate through her last day on Earth is top notch, especially the confrontations between her and her sister Lindy (played amazingly by Cassidy Ingersoll). Acreman gets the best performances from her actors—these confrontation scenes are proof of that.
Queen of the Andes serves as a fabulous dose of well-needed hope that focuses on a positive future where we get to do wonderful things like explore other planets rather than depicting our cold and boring life in lockdown in 2021.