‘Moonfish’ Review: This Existential Outer Space Abandonment Saga Is a Bizarro ‘Project Hail Mary’

The first thing anyone will notice about “Moonfish” is how suffocatingly gray everything looks, as writer/director Daniel Zvereff’s vision of outer space is nothing if not monochromatic. The moon is gray, with the only pops of color coming in the form of black and white piles of mineral debris. The spaceship inhabited by Cassius (Morgan Spector) is gray, as is the astronaut himself. The animation is sparse enough to convey the ever-present sadness in his eyes, but not detailed enough to show us anything that could be considered beautiful or life-affirming. And it’s all crammed into a 4:3 aspect ratio that illustrates the sensation of his own psychological walls closing in on him as time slips away. Reasonable people could disagree about whether it’s meant to portray the actual grayness of space or cinematically represent the psyche of a broken person, but there’s clearly a bit of both factors at play. It ensures that nobody can have any doubts that we’re watching one man’s profoundly dark night of the soul from the moment the theater lights go down. And you know what? If you were in Cassius’ shoes, you’d be pretty down in the dumps too. It’s the 2060s, and humans have definitively lost the power struggle with the machines we created. Hyper-intelligent robots run all of our largest companies, and the resources required to make them so intelligent ensures that nobody would ever dream of placing them in harm’s way. So dangerous tasks like outer space mining missions are strictly the purview of humans, who remain free to produce through natural methods. Every planet, moon, and asteroid that we’re capable of reaching from Earth has been divided among a handful of corporations that want to extract their natural resources from them. Even the magic of the night sky, one of the last refuges of dreamers whose lives on earth didn’t pan out the way they hoped, is now just another workplace where you’ll never have a chance of sharing the fruits of your labor. When his work opportunities on Earth dried up, Cassius signed a multi-year contract with one of these companies to mine minerals on a distant asteroid. The terms of the deal were standard: two astronauts fly out in a ship, and nobody gets to return until they’ve fulfilled their mining quota. If that wasn’t already nerve-wracking enough, the ship is filled with signage bearing the company’s eloquent slogan, “NO QUOTA, NO PICK-UP.” Cassius and his partner Vesper (Lucy Liu) never held any delusions about the benevolence of their employer, but they did their best to make the best of a dystopian situation. But when Vesper dies, Cassius is faced with the daunting realization that his quota will be difficult to physically fulfill on his own. Even worse, the crushing loneliness and lack of anything to ground him might make him forget who he is as a person. It isn’t long before he starts hearing Vesper’s voice in his goldfish, which becomes the closest thing he’ll get to a conversation partner. In between his Sisyphean attempts to complete his work and find meaning, Cassius and the fish discuss the sad state of affairs that led humanity to this point. More than his own material conditions, Cassius laments the fact that the bulk of his life has been lived in a world devoid of hope. In a world where the only real choice anyone gets to make is which of the five or six identical corporations to work for, even dreaming about better days feels like a waste of time. But when you’re left in a cold, colorless galaxy with little chance of returning home, you begin to wonder why you ever complained about life on a dystopian planet that still had free pleasures like sunshine and fresh air to enjoy. There are some obvious parallels to draw between “Moonfish” and another 2026 release, “Project Hail Mary.” Both films follow a man whose work abandons him in outer space and forces him to befriend a non-human companion while he plots his escape. The Hollywood take on the premise was rooted in hope, showing us what one person is capable of when he puts his mind to it. “Moonfish” takes the opposite approach, preferring to spend its time in the psyche of a lonely protagonist facing the kind of existential crisis that only outer space abandonment can trigger. Zvereff conceived the project after a false diagnosis made him spend two agonizing weeks thinking he was on death’s door. While it mercifully turned out to be a false alarm, the film reflects that sense of melancholy that arrives when you see your life slipping away and wonder what you have to show for it. “Moonfish” is a difficult watch at times, but its unapologetic malaise should speak to many audience members whose own futures don’t feel that much more promising than “NO QUOTA, NO PICKUP.” Grade: B+ “Moonfish” premiered at the 2026 Venice International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.