**This review may contain some potential, unavoidable spoilers about the basics of “Biosphere.’ Spoilerphobes, please beware and return after you have seen the movie.**
A film like “Biosphere” poses a genuine conundrum for the film critic, who is tasked with the job of describing, in some detail, a film that counts among its best qualities the element of absurdist surprise. Its only plot description at the time of this writing, on the TIFF website (where it was added, quite close to the festival, as a “special surprise screening”), reads simply, “In the not-too-distant future, the last two men on earth must adapt and evolve to save humanity.” Well, that sounds like any number of science fiction pictures, while “in the not-too-distant future” recalls “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” The film itself falls somewhere in between.
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The director is Mel Eslyn, a longtime producer for the Duplass Brothers and Lynn Shelton; she wrote the screenplay with Mark Duplass, who also co-stars with Sterling K. Brown as one of those last two men on earth (and the only two men in the film). They dwell in the titular building, a small bunker stocked with a handful of books, non-perishable foods, plants, and a fish tank. Billy (Duplass) was the president once upon a time; Ray (Brown), his longtime friend, is the scientist who built the biosphere for him. (Yes, masturbation is addressed, and early.)
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They’ve been there for quite some time, and it’s apparent from their relationship, which is rife with gallows humor (When Ray gets impatient with a theory, Billy snaps, “I’m sorry, you got somewhere you need to be?”) and running jokes (to Ray’s implication that he’s not too bright, Billy roars, “You mispronounce the word ‘capricious’ ONE TIME!”)
So it begins as a buddy movie, and Duplass and Brown are fine scene partners, exuding the give-and-take rhythms of years spent together. They’ve figured out a life and routine that works, but suddenly, it stops working. There’s a mysterious green light off in the distance, and that’s concerning. Even more, so is the rate at which their fish keep dying prematurely — especially when Ray reveals that the one they just ate for dinner was their last female. The clock is ticking; Ray, the calm one, assures Billy they’ll figure something out, while Billy’s paranoia and fear kick in immediately.
(And here’s where it’s hard to say more without giving things away — not out of some too-precious concern for spoilers, but out of respect for the viewing experience. Esyln and Duplass’ script unpeels its premise so slowly, carefully, and effectively that going into the film cold really does make it stranger, funnier, and more entertaining. But if you don’t mind — or if you’ve already seen it — press on.)
A few days into the fish panic, Ray notices that one of their male fish seems to be adapting to the situation — “Sequential hermaphroditism” theory, in which a male fish embarks on an “accelerated evolution,” developing female sex organs in order to ensure the continuation of the species. The clever viewer will figure out where they’re going, and thankfully, the filmmakers get there pretty quickly: Billy has noticed that he’s going through some… changes. Ray, a true scientist, is fascinated; Billy less so (“Are you fucking smiling right now?”). Eslyn hard cuts to Billy reading “The New Our Bodies, Ourselves,” and bowing out of a morning jog with Ray (“This is different”). And eventually the question is finally asked: “Do you think we could make a baby?”
Through most of its running time, “Biosphere” somehow manages to have it both ways — it’s infantile but credible, silly but, on a dime, dead serious. Both Brown and Duplass manage to pivot between tones adroitly; their respectively shocked and stunned reactions to the escalating developments are extremely funny, but even a situation as fundamentally and broadly comic as a funeral for Billy’s penis (“From the moment I knew you, I loved you”) can take on unexpected, serious overtones. When Billy breaks down crying in that moment, helplessly despairing, “I’m really confused,” he means it, and Duplass plays it that way. Brown is also reactively funny — he has to sell a very specific moment of out-of-frame action, as Eslyn holds on a close-up of his face, and he crushes it — but the first time the situation gets too real for him, he lashes out in a manner that’s sort of shocking.
This is all written and played with the utmost delicacy, and for good reason; if it tips a nudge too far in the wrong direction, they’re squarely in embarrassing, ’90s sitcom, gay panic territory. On a couple of occasions, that line is crossed, albeit just barely, and there are other momentary digressions (the ending seems to confuse intellectual and emotional satisfaction). But the filmmakers and actors mostly manage to sound the right notes by making the picture less about desire than expectation.
In many ways, Eslyn and Duplass are playing in the same sandbox he explored with Lynn Shelton in “Humpday”; when Billy pokes Ray about tolerance (“You’re a registered Democrat, right? You’re supposed to be all progressive”), it’s provocative, and there are scenes here that grapple with real questions of masculinity and circumstance. Like “Humpday,” it’s an act of daring — we’re waiting for the movie to cop out because most movies do. This one doesn’t, and bravo for that. [B+]
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