5 Must-See Romantic Sci-Fi Flicks to Watch if You Loved The Gorge
Love through space and time, attempts to preserve feelings in the world of lost memory, and Romeo and Juliet from opposite universes.
The new Apple TV+ hit The Gorge is a movie that blends many genres, but two of the most important are sci-fi and romance.
The blend of these two genres is not often seen on the big screen, but when it is, we get to see truly amazing and touching stories that are not limited by the boundaries of our world.
1. Comet, 2014
Sam Esmail, best known for Mr. Robot, breathes new life into the traditional boy-meets-girl romance.
Comet is a dreamy, even fragmentary movie, a bit like Poor Things and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The main characters – sometimes exes, sometimes future lovers, sometimes happily ever afters – jump through timelines and universes, trying to meet and part.
2. Little Fish, 2020
The world is infected: the sick begin to forget loved ones, passwords, addresses, and then how to breathe, walk, or eat. Young spouses search for ways to stay forever in each other's memories, but gradually the new reality overwhelms them.
Little Fish is a romance on the edge of science fiction: a world engulfed by a new catastrophe becomes the background for the intensification of intimacy.
3. Passengers, 2016
A spaceship with 5,000 passengers in a deep sleep leaves for a new home – another planet. Jim wakes up long before arrival and tries to cope with his unexpected loneliness. But soon boredom drives him to a desperate step – to wake up one of his fellow travelers.
Instead of a space story, the movie turns into a melodrama set in futuristic locations. The relationship between two people, formed under unusual circumstances, develops according to a familiar scenario: falling in love, quarreling and living together.
4. Her, 2013
Joaquin Phoenix plays a lonely writer going through a painful breakup. In an attempt to find a kindred spirit, he buys a new piece of technology – an operating system with Scarlett Johansson 's voice, and it gradually becomes more real to the man than the world around him.
The romance that develops between the two – an ordinary person and an AI – is not so much director Spike Jonze's desire to enter the territory of science fiction and explore the near future, but an attempt to talk about all-consuming loneliness and the power of feelings.
5. Upside Down, 2012
Two planets are too close together. Each has its own population and gravity. If the upper one is filled with luxury and wealth, then the second one is poor and dependent. A man and a woman meet in the mountains and immediately fall in love. Coming from different worlds, they break the laws of physics of their planets to be together.
This is a dystopia about social inequality set against fantastic landscapes that proves once again that love can turn everything upside down in an instant.