At the end of Spaceman, Adam Sandler’s character, Jakub, finds himself back home — or does he? The final moments of the new science fiction drama are ambiguous, but they hint at a personal peace that its main character has been striving toward throughout. “What I like about art in any shape is for it to leave you with a thought,” director Johan Renck told Netflix. “If I turn off a film or leave a movie theater, and there’s something from that film that still kind of resonates, and the currents are still moving within me, that’s a success –– and a requirement for me.”
Below, you’ll find a map to the currents moving within Spaceman’s ending, with input from Renck himself.
Based on Jaroslav Kalfař’s novel Spaceman in Bohemia, Spaceman tells the story of Jakub, an astronaut on a surreal voyage to investigate the Chopra cloud, a mysterious astral phenomenon. Exactly 189 days into his trip, he’s reached the outskirts of Jupiter and radios down to his superior officer, Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini). She tells him: “This phenomenon has haunted our skies for the past four years, and now your images have captivated the world.”
The film never quite answers the big question of what the cloud is, but Jakub’s spidery stowaway Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano) refers to a small speck of it as “a grain from the Beginning.” The implication is the beginning of the universe, but in practice, examining the Chopra cloud leads Jakub to examining another beginning — that of his own relationship.
Along Jakub’s journey, the Chopra cloud seems to provoke hallucinatory flashbacks, with Jakub’s mind returning home to his estranged wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan). Lenka is considering leaving her husband for good, in part because he left her –– pregnant and alone –– back on Earth.
“There’s that cliche of the wife who stays at home and is miserable and complains about her husband going off to do something huge,” Mulligan told Netflix. By contrast, she felt that Lenka’s character arc spoke to the themes at the heart of the film. “I felt like this role was such an interesting take on that because she has real agency. She makes a decision that she’s going to leave and do this alone. I thought there was real power in her deciding that she’s not going to just wallow in the fact that he’s not there. She’s not isolating herself really. She’s just isolating herself from him, and it’s what she needs in that moment to survive it.”
“To me, the story is about isolation and distance and unattainable love,” Renck said. “It was first and foremost a love story for me, with such a unique and specific setting as being on a solo journey in space, which becomes a perfect metaphor” for loneliness.
The final scene sees Jakub and Lenka in a dreamy riverbank reunion, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s made it back home. It appears that Jakub has been picked up by the rival South Korean Chopra expedition –– but the parallel with his and Lenka’s first kiss suggests that the moment could easily be his fantasy of reconciliation. Either way, it’s a nostalgic reminder of their years-long bond and an acknowledgment of fault from Jakub, who apologizes for leaving her.
“If I’d known then what I know now, I never would have left,” Jakub tells Lenka from a drifting spacecraft. It’s an optimistic ending for two lost souls. But what happens next is up to them.
Yes. “He’s a creature from the beginning of time who comes and visits Jakub,” Renck said. “We are not alone in the universe. We know there are Hanušes out there.”
Voiced by Paul Dano, the ancient spider-like creature is Jakub’s only friend throughout the film, a voice of reason if not always a reasonable voice. Renck compares him to other strange advisors in science-fiction films, including HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back — with a wholly original twist. “This entity of Hanuš has been represented in films before,” Renck said, “but obviously we had no interest in making another rendition of that character. And Paul understood that.”
Dano took his job as the actor behind Hanuš very seriously. “For me, Hanuš felt really clear on the page. I think Johan and I saw eye to eye right away,” Dano said. “I went to set a few times and we did some rehearsals. It was important for Adam to kind of have just a taste of the real Hanuš as well.”
When Dano wasn’t on set, there was a much more low-tech substitute for the giant alien creature. “We had a massive plush toy spider that we could pin up so that Jakob Ihre, our director of photography, knew where Hanuš was going to be,” VFX supervisor Matt Sloan said. “And we did have a 3D-printed little Hanuš face as an eye line for Adam to talk to.”
Whatever Hanuš is, he’s exactly the sounding board that Jakub needs to get through his ordeal. “There was something really beautiful about this idea of having to explain your humanity to a creature that isn’t human,” Kalfař told Netflix. “We are all very different people on this Earth, and we misunderstand each other a lot, but in the end, we have core experiences and emotions.”
Late in the film, it becomes clear that Hanuš is dying, being consumed by a parasite that destroyed his home world. As he and Jakub approach what Hanuš calls only “the Beginning,” they share one final moment adrift in the vacuum of space. Hanuš has helped Jakub find himself, in his own way.
“I’ve always found that I have an ability to have these inner dialogues with myself when things are challenging or in situations of severity,” Renck continued. “And I tend to find those conversations give a lot of clarity. I think we all have that ability to have one outer you and one inner you.”
When the gentle spider dissolves in space at the film’s climax, it’s a tragic moment for his newfound friend. “I hope that Hanuš is a little bit scary at first, because he would be. I mean, he is a giant spider. Spiders, especially hairy spiders, they’re not for everybody,” Dano said. “But he’s a kind soul and a wise man. He’s a traveler of space and time. It was easy for me to love him, and I hope the audience does, too.”
Spaceman is streaming on Netflix now.
