Vesper (2022) The best small-scale world building in indie sci-fi for years (Cinema & VOD Review)

You’d expect many things to have their origins in ABCs of Death 2 – toilet humour, heightened gore, old genres on a micro level, puns as horror, and a base level of horror debauchery. One thing you wouldn’t expect is a French/Lithuanian duo to collaborate on a thoughtful ecological sci-fi feature with a primarily English cast shot in Lithuania. Yet, here we are, and its name? Vesper, the debut feature-length collaboration by Kristina Buozyte & Bruno Samper.

The titular Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) is an independent young woman who wanders the wastelands in search of food for her deathly ill father, Darius (Richard Blake). A short walk away is a settlement run by the unsavoury Jonas (Eddie Marsan), who has somewhat of a working relationship with futuristic cities called Citadels. The wastelands are a curious landscape in that they don’t support the growth of consumable crops; there are also a variety of plants that will absorb people given half a chance. They have technology advanced enough to pair Vesper’s ailing father’s mind to a floating drone, so his mind can do what his body cannot. On one of her treks accompanied by that drone, she finds a woman (Camellia (Rosy McEwen)) being eaten alive by the local flora in a vision reminiscent of 2021’s South African eco-horror, Gaia. By saving Camellia, Vesper inadvertently kick-starts a series of events whereby the all-powerful citadel imposes its will on those living in extreme poverty.

Survivalist fiction has seen a rise in recent years in the indie sci-fi space, and being frank – much of it is dry past and beyond the point of being boring. Yes, those other films had ideas: it is a shame that those ideas weren’t in something more compelling. This fact alone elevates Vesper past other films of this ilk simply because Buozyte & Samper’s script is bustling with ideas, production design and concepts.

Vesper and her father were abandoned by her mother (before the events of the film), as she left them to join a silent order that wears black robes and combs the lands for scrap. We see them twice; they are nothing more than a background detail to flesh out the world. Eddie Marsan runs a small village that survives through a blood trade with the citadel. Pallid, mindless robots wander the wastelands, and one crashes into Jonas’s community. This devolves into a situation resolved by the town’s overseer forcing his youngest to kill the automaton to the jeers and cheers of a braying crowd – a real grim coming-of-age ceremony. The drone paired with a human’s psyche is not of wires, circuit boards and metal – its innards are an orange fleshy cavity. There are other vertical slices of world-building, but to detail them would mean jumping into third-act spoilers.

That there are more examples of what makes this world tick than I can reasonably mention neatly and succinctly sums up how much consideration was spent on making this world feel alive. A writing and production achievement that gives Vesper a lived-in reality deeper than that of the typical indie sci-fi yarn. This might not sound like much, but it is vital for a film with just as much going on under the surface – less it falls to pieces under its own weight.

Even explaining the story reveals one of its many readable subtexts – the growing gulf between the richest and the poorest is growing more every year, something the writing/directing duo push to its extreme. Seeing how futuristic the citadel’s technology is, it’s almost as if Robocop turns up in Lord of the Rings. Then, they talk of how older generations corrupt the innocence of youth, taking from it as they will – making their lives longer, and more comfortable. The wastelanders – let’s call them – all dress similarly to refugees who cross countries on foot looking for a better home. There can be no avoiding how openly political film Vesper is, and all under the guise of a contained, subtle, environmental sci-fi.

Vesper is a well-thought-out and impressive film with the best small-scale production design in indie sci-fi for many years. An intentionally slow-paced drama about the disintegration of the family in extreme circumstances, with an excellent supporting cast and star-turn from its leading lady, Raffiella Chapman. Even if the animal sounds scene could be cut or cut right down, I don’t often use the word cringe in a review, but that scene earns it. Having the skill and conviction to pepper in ideas, meaning and sci-fi concepts to the extent where you could easily describe it all as too much – it takes a great balancing act to stop it all from toppling over. It’s well worth seeking out – however, please watch it in the right frame of mind to stop that precarious balancing act from crushing everything under its considerable weight.

Vesper

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