What if it’s the end of the world and you’re stuck with your best friend in an environmentally controlled biosphere where things get more than a little weird? That’s the premise of Biosphere, a movie starring Mark Duplass (The Morning Show) and Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us, Black Panther) that features two best buds going stir-crazy while they concoct some… surprising ways to keep humanity going.
The film comes to us from writer-director Mel Eslyn (The One I Love), with Duplass also co-writing the script. “I had this vision of these two guys living inside of a dome, arguing fiercely about Super Mario Bros,” Duplass explained in the released press notes for the film. “I don’t know why I had that idea, but I have come, as an artist, to trust that the subconscious knows better than I do. That there might be something in there beyond the buddy comedy elements of that scene. That’s where Mel really comes into play–she finds lines that I cannot see. And right off, she saw that this would be a fun way to examine how men behave in front of each other when there are not only no women around, there is no one else around at all. We also talked a lot about the nature of toxic masculinity. And we thought a buddy comedy that felt a little Lethal Weapon-like in the way that the characters interact would be a nice Trojan Horse way into this. It could be fun and we wouldn’t be beating people over the head.”
Lethal Weapon but the apocalypse? Sign me up!
Here’s the movie’s official synopsis:
Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K. Brown) are lifelong best friends, brothers from another mother—and the last two men on earth. Their survival is largely due to Ray, a brilliant scientist who designed a domed structure with all the systems necessary to sustain life on a planet that could no longer support it. Their custom biosphere is outfitted with basic necessities and creature comforts that make it possible to retain a sense of what life used to be like. A hydroponic garden provides fresh vegetables and a carefully managed fishpond supplies essential protein. Recently, however, fish have begun dying at an alarming rate. With a mere three fish remaining, Billy and Ray face an ominous future. But life may yet find a way.
Biosphere will make its way into theaters in July 2023.
