IT'S LONELY OUT IN SPACE FOR ADAM SANDLER IN PENSIVE SCI-FI PSYCHODRAMA 'SPACEMAN'

David Bowie's Major Tom, sitting in his tin can. Elton John's Rocket Man, missing Earth and his wife. Matt Damon in "The Martian," left behind to starve. Matthew McConaughey in "Interstellar," weeping as he watches his kids age without him.

Much art has been made of the infinite loneliness of space travel. And how could it not? Loneliness may be a universal human condition, but what could be lonelier than being removed from the human race entirely? 

And so when Adam Sandler, as moody Czech astronaut Jakub in Johan Renck's "Spaceman," is asked by a young girl during a broadcast to Earth if he's lonely, he answers in platitudes but his eyes betray the truth. Yes, he is lonely. Very lonely.

At one point in Sandler's career, the idea of the actor in a spacesuit as an anxious astronaut heading to the outskirts of Jupiter could only have signaled comedy. But we've seen enough great work at this point from Sandler in dramatic roles to know what he's capable of when the stars are aligned, and he gives a hugely empathetic performance here.

If there's a flaw in "Spaceman," despite its tantalizing promise, it's not a lack of acting heft but strangely, a lack of story heft. Adapted from the novel "Spaceman of Bohemia" by Jaroslav Kalfar, it paints a world that should be fascinating but is often reduced to seductive yet ultimately frustrating dream sequences. They're lovely, but we'd like to actually know more about Jakub and his past on Earth, not to mention his relationship with wife Lenka (the always-wonderful Carey Mulligan) beyond seeing her run through yellow fields of flowers.

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Rob Schneider, left, and Adam Sandler attend the Night of Too Many Stars comedy benefit for autism programs at the Beacon Theatre, Monday, Dec. 11, 2023, in New York. (Photo by CJ Rivera/ Invision/AP)

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We begin halfway through Jakub's mission. That's 189 days since he left Lenka and Earth for a solo trip to explore the Chopra cloud near Jupiter, glistening and purple and mysterious, beating the Koreans to the punch.