More than any other film you’ll see this year, there is unlikely to be as wonderfully unexpected a work as the one writer-director Mel Eslyn has created with her oddly beautiful feature debut Biosphere. At its most straightforward, it is a light science fiction dramedy starring a delightful Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown as two men who may be the very last people alive on Earth. They are living in a biosphere that gives the film its title where they spend their time running laps around the confined structure that is surrounded by darkness, discussing the complexities of the Super Mario Bros., and just trying to fill the many days that stretch before them. They are also facing dwindling resources, a predicament which brings into painfully stark yet darkly silly focus just how fragile life is for each of them. Though they make jokes to keep sane, their story is one that initially seems to be defined by a painful dilemma in which there is seemingly no great outcome. To continue clinging to survival is to face an existence that will almost certainly be ruled by loneliness and isolation with only each other for company while to die a painful death of starvation is to seal the fate of humanity itself.

Ray (Brown) is the more intelligent one who has built the abode in which they are living and Billy (Duplass) is the more goofy of the duo who bumbles his way through their day-to-day life. Their relationship is expressed via a masculine familiarity with each making light jabs at the expense of the other as a way of maintaining intimacy in the only way they know how. They have a history together that may have brought about this crisis they find themselves in, which we are given only brief acknowledgments of and feels largely extraneous to a story that is best when it is looking forward. What it is that this future holds requires a great deal of withholding as to write of the film’s narrative in too much detail would take away from the experience. Some of this is external, as there is a mysterious green light outside that is initially distant though is rapidly growing closer to the biosphere itself, while much of it is internal in an increasingly profound sense. The relationship between the two men, as well as their vision of themselves and their masculinity, is the driving force of a bittersweet yet dynamic portrait of life at the end of the world that is one of the most pleasant surprises of the year thus far.

RELATED: ‘Biosphere’ Cast & Filmmakers Reveal Why You Should Know As Little As Possible Before Watching the Film | TIFF 2022

Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown Are Brilliant in ‘Biosphere’
Image via IFC Films

All of this subterfuge in terms of laying out its story may make it sound like this is more of a thriller built around twists and turns. It is thus important to note that, while there are plenty of growing developments, all of them are grounded in ephemeral emotions and how the two leads navigate their characters’ respective anxieties about the future. In this regard, Duplass and Brown each give what may be one of the best performances of their careers. Each brings to life the particularities of the man, both in what they put forth and who they are underneath it all, without ever falling into feeling like it is all a joke. Duplass has done similar work to this, such as in the underrated 2019 film Paddleton, but there is something more expansive to this.

We see Billy’s flaws without him holding back just as we begin to see his capacity for change. It is existential without feeling weighty in a way that could be disappointing, but it also feels authentic in how it captures how people make sense of upheavals in their life. Much of this falls on Brown’s shoulders and he carries this weight like it was nothing. Just as he did in last year’s Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul, he can shift between being sharply funny in one moment and more conflicted in another. What makes it so interesting here is how the emotion starting to take hold of Ray will rise up when you least expect it with some monologues that he gives seeming like they could blow the roof off of the tiny home the two have built for themselves. When complimented by the wondrous score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, it takes on a transcendent quality that breaks free of any and all limitations.

As the film then taps into something more deceptively deep, the jokes don’t undercut the themes it is excavating. Most refreshingly, they take us deeper into them and never reduce them to being a gag. One is in service of the other as it strikes a balance between sincerity and silliness that makes everything feel complete. There is a version of this film and a long history of works that have used similar topics as a way to ridicule rather than explore. Whether that exploration is a successful one will certainly bring about many conversations, especially when it comes to questions of gender and the ideas we have of it, though Biosphere never feels like it shies away from this. Instead, lines that hint at societal-level conceptions of what it means to be a man are all part of the world that has been created. It cuts into how both Billy and Ray are informed by their experiences, leading to increasing openness between them that is delicately incisive. Some of it can feel a bit slippery, with many scenes passing rather quickly when you almost wish it would sit with them for a bit longer, but the feelings themselves ring true whenever it has them in its grasp. It is a film that challenges the boundaries of genre, tone, and identity with a confidence that makes even moments of silence after the confessions come tumbling out feel quietly revelatory when you least expect it.

‘Biosphere’ Proves Mel Eslyn Is a Filmmaker to Watch
Image via IFC Films

More than anything, the film proves to be the arrival of an exciting new directing voice. Eslyn, who also wrote the film with Duplass, has been a longtime producer though shows she is a talented filmmaker with much to say of her own with this feature debut. She has made a film that is not about sci-fi spectacle as much as it is a more intimate exploration of two friends. Some have compared it to the similarly introspective 2009 film Humpday, which was directed by the late director Lynn Shelton and also starred Duplass, in how each is about two men grappling with their insecurities while pushing the story further into uncharted waters.

However, rather than feeling like one is drawing from the other, they would make a great double feature. As time itself begins to blur where we don’t always know exactly how many days, weeks, or months have passed until there are physical markers that begin to provide some hint, the film also takes on an epic scale even amidst its absurdity. Even with a rather sudden ending, which lands with a literal thud, it is a fitting one that caps off a fascinating film about the infinite possibilities of both the universe and ourselves. All you need to do is open your mind to its wonders and you may too discover something about yourself along the way.

Rating: A-

Biosphere is in theaters and on VOD starting July 7.