Biosphere

Most post-apocalyptic movies relish the carnage of a world in flames. In Biosphere, the new sci-fi chamber piece produced by the Duplass brothers, the chaos is a little more low-key: the death of a fish. The piscine passing may signal the end of humanity, as Diane was a key component of the water filtration system that's keeping former U.S. president Billy (Duplass) and his childhood friend and science advisor, Ray (Brown), alive. They secured themselves away in an Armageddon-proof geodesic dome while the rest of the world died, and now they spend their time reading, playing video games, and jogging around their small survival space.

That's when a natural phenomenon comes to their potential salvation: Sequential hermaphroditism, as another of the fish, Woody, suddenly begins switching genders to allow the continuation of the species. And if it's good enough for fish, the obvious question is posed, can Billy and Ray help life, uh, find a way?

Written by Mark Duplass and first-time feature director and veteran producer Mel Eslyn (Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off, The One I Love), there's no doubt that Biosphere is filled with ideas, and they're given easy life by Brown and Duplass. There's a charm to their interactions as Billy and Ray's decades of friendship feels convincing. There's a particularly delightful recurrent discussion about who's the Mario and who's the Luigi in this situation, and an old argument about a bowling ball that keeps cropping up. It's in these moments of simple camaraderie that Biosphere is at its most likable and enjoyable, and has the most clarity about what it's trying to say.

But it's also too prone to diversions that end up as dead ends. The inevitable male-to-female transformation of one of the pair, Billy's responsibility for the end of the world, questions about gender, the pandemic lockdown echoes of their situation – they're all tackled but superficially, and without resolution. It's not that they're overshadowed by the bromance, but they're just not as engaging as the core buddy dynamic. There's a sense that Duplass and Eslyn deliberately avoided any narrative or dramatic weight to the story, to keep it low-key and personal: a wise move because that's where Biosphere is the most fun to visit.