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THE MYTHICAL JOURNEY
The film Ad Astra (2019) with Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones begins with Roy McBride (Pitt), an astronaut who is doing work outside of the International Space Antennae. It is an umbilical cord that extends from Mother Earth into what looks like very low Earth orbit, much like an envisioned space elevator. While working outside the ISA Roy is suddenly hit by a “surge” of some kind, that causes him to plummet to the Earth.
The film essentially begins with a son tethered by an umbilical to Earth and having this connection broken by his mad father, astronaut Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). This father is billions of miles away, yet his actions reverberate in his son’s life in various ways.
One seeming “good” consequence of his father’s absence is Roy’s low heart rate and calm demeanor, both of which are seen as good masculine traits that make him a perfect astronaut.
In the story that unfolds, we see hints at another broken connection for Roy and likely related to his father-wound. Roy appears to show little emotion and has broken up with his wife Eve (Liv Tyler).
ABANDONED AND POSSIBLY ABUSED
Roy it seems, prefers the simplicity of being alone – and this is in part due to his father’s long absence when he went to work as an astronaut at the edge of the solar system – but there are hints that it may be for other reasons too.
Roy speaks of his father’s rage, and there are images that look as if a young Roy is being snatched into a room by his father in the shadows.
NOT A FIELD OF DREAMS
There are some marked contrasts between this film and Field of Dreams that are worth noting. Perhaps the biggest difference is the type of father. Roy’s father in Ad Astra abandoned him and appears to be a bad dad. Ray from Field Of Dreams left his dad behind and regrets that loss. His father was not a bad person, just someone who had gotten beaten down by life.
I wrote more about the father-son connection found in Field of Dreams in the attached article below:
Jungian psychology looks to understand the myths we live in, and we have many reasons to understand that Roy is on a mythical journey, but there are undertones of despair throughout the film, rather than hope & healing, that Field of Dreams evoked.
Roy appears to be isolating himself, which we can see as a trauma response, and this appears to be intergenerational trauma.
We see this because Roy’s dad has isolated himself to the furthest point of the solar system he can reach… or as he describes it, the edge of the heliosphere.
It appears that astronaut Clifford McBride is trying to get past the warmth of Earth’s sun in order to find intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy.
However, it could be argued this is the opposite, and is instead a need for self-annihilation and a detachment from everything that would connect Clifford to Earth – and likely his own trauma and pain.
MAD GENIUS ARCHETYPE: ICARUS & HIS FATHER DAEDALUS
We might look to the story of Icarus and his father Daedalus as an example of mythical undertones for Ad Astra. Instead of Icarus flying too high and plummeting to his death at the end of the story – we have Roy, who is falling from the sky at the beginning of the film.
Daedalus in the mythical stories is described as a sculptor and architect. Daedalus created the labyrinth that would imprison the minotaur, the monster he is partly responsible for. He is the genius inventor archetype like Leonardo DaVinci, both of whom wished to fly.
Daedalus created the wings that allowed Icarus to fly in order to escape their imprisonment which is the result of his own mad inventions.
This is where we may find the parallel to Roy’s hero father Clifford– and a divergence from DaVinci. Roy’s dad isn’t just a genius inventor – he is the mad genius archetype that imperils his son.
He is not an archetypal good father.
THE TASKS ON A JOURNEY
Myths like Psyche and Eros show us that a mythological story has tasks that must be overcome on a journey, and in Psyche’s case they were hurdles meant to make her fail. The tasks are hurdles the hero must overcome and for Roy they involve crossing “No Man’s Land” on the moon, fighting space monkeys en route to Mars, and then swimming in a subterranean lake on Mars before he is reborn.
Throughout the challenges, Roy is being pushed toward his emotional center. He is being stripped of safety and isolated repeatedly on this journey to seek his father. With each part of the trip, he gets further from home, and we begin to feel his longing for connection.
MARS TASK: MESSAGING DAD
It is a subtle moment when Roy (Pitt) goes off the military script when trying to contact his dad. We can feel the internal shift as emotions begin to well slowly to the surface.
Later in a psych check-in, he explains that the space monkeys (baboons) affected him the most:
“The attack it was full of rage. I understand that rage. I’ve seen that rage in my father and I’ve seen that rage in me. Because I’m angry that he took off. He left us. You know… when I look at that anger, if I push it aside and just put it away, all I see is hurt. I just see pain. I think it keeps me walled off from relationships and opening myself up and, you know, really caring for someone.”
Roy continues, “I don’t want to be my dad.”
While likely true, what Roy shared is perhaps a little too insightful for someone who has been so shut down, it speaks to the writer’s insights rather than the character. It also speaks to the undercurrent of rage that Roy has been stifling, and his father has been expressing.
FATHER HERO / MAD VILLAIN
This film ends in complete opposition to Field of Dreams. If Field of Dreams was about a son healing old wounds with this father, this relationship was about a son facing his dad and seeing that madness before he can let go.
Early in the film Roy wonders about his dad:
“What happened to my dad? What did he find out there? Did it break him – or was he always broken?”
Roy’s father in Ad Astra is admittedly unconcerned about his family on Earth, Clifford tells Roy:
“Home? This is home. This is a one-way voyage my son. You’re talking about Earth? There was never anything for me there. I never cared about you or your mother – or any of your small ideas… I never once thought about home.”
Roy is hearing for himself the awful truth from his dad.
Even so, there is one more task for Roy, his father asks him to stay and complete the research together – and Roy refuses his father.
INDIVIDUATION
If Field of Dreams was about a son (Ray) who individuated too harshly and too soon from his dad and lived to regret it, then the opposite is that in Ad Astra (Roy) has not fully individuated from his dad. He has lived in this shadow of his dad’s achievements, as well as his dad’s rage.
Roy’s individuation comes slowly, as he begins to feel again and long for connection, and he ultimately rejects the path of his father.
If this metaphorical journey by one man seems impossibly hard, maybe it speaks to the internal odyssey that men are often on.
There are moments we can all fail, there are waste lands to be crossed.
There are space monkeys ready to bite your face off.
There is the unrelenting loneliness of space when you find yourself alone in life cut off by yourself, repeating the mistakes of past generations of traumatized men who are taught to cut off their emotions and need for connection.
THE TAKEAWAY
When trauma is not dealt with it passes from generation to generation and Roy finds himself grappling with it. For Roy, this has been an internal journey; what we see is a metaphor for a father and son locked in multi-generational pain and trauma. On the one hand, we have the father who is so wounded and wrapped up in himself that we see he cannot escape. We see the great lengths he will go – to cut off from his emotions.
On the other, we see a younger man who has been wrestling with his demons and is finding his way out before he too gets lost.
Fairy tales and myth as played out in films like Ad Astra are not necessarily trying to amplify the idea of the happy ending, the riches gained, becoming the prince or princess. These stories like the myth of Psyche and Eros are about tasks that need to be completed on an inner journey. It is about grappling with our demons, and the need for something to die, so that we can be reborn to a new life as Roy does.
The treasure found was not at the edge of the solar system, it was found in Roy’s resolve to return to the world of the living and connection, but like for Ray in Field of Dreams, and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, it was something Roy too carried with him all along.
It meant rejecting past male dysfunction, and embracing a life of being a vulnerable man.
#individuation #jungianpsychology #psychotherapy #followyourmyth #fatherwounds #masculinity
Follow Your Myth 