There are times when this micro-budget British indie feels like an unintentional parody of experimental cinema: obscure pseudo-poetic dialogue delivered deadpan; circular plot threads that lead nowhere; entire scenes that bear no relation to the rest of the movie; pretty young people in crazy clothes rubbing up against each other. There are other moments when ‘Spaceship’ feels like something genuinely bold and unpredictable – but they’re a lot rarer.
The closest comparison is probably Andrea Arnold’s similarly loose and youthful ‘American Honey’. Here, a teenage girl from Aldershot vanishes in an apparent alien abduction, leaving her ‘outsider’ friends and perplexed dad to wonder what happened. But first-time feature director Alex Taylor is no Arnold. Where she found humour, tragedy and savage social satire in her young tearaways, Taylor finds self-focused rebellion and a seemingly bottomless capacity for asinine conversation. That said, there are some striking moments, notably a near-death experience in a neon-lit nightclub that’s the closest the film comes to an emotional climax.
