A film that for some reason went unnoticed by most in 2022 was Vesper, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film with a teenage protagonist. While there is no shortage of films with this basic premise, Vesper does something different. It is a visual spectacle that many audiences missed out on with its box office numbers severely lacking, making only $1.5 million globally.
With little to no marketing and a limited theatrical release, Vesper quietly came and went with sci-fi fans not even realizing what they missed. That said, let's take a closer look at the film and why this overlooked sci-fi movie from 2022 is worth a watch.
Directed by Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper, Vesper is a film that was six years in the making for the pair, who also wrote the script along with Bruno Clark. A French film by creation, Vesper was shot in English in order to help it reach a wider audience. The plot follows a thirteen-year-old girl named Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), who, in a world that has been plunged into The New Dark Ages, lives outside the high-walled citadels that house the oligarchy in charge of food supplies. Also essential to daily life are artificial humans called Jugs, whose sole purpose is to be used as a slave labor workforce.
In the past efforts to curb the climate crisis, the world had bet everything on genetic technology but engineered viruses and organisms escaped, wiping out much of the world's plant life, animals, and human population. Food supplies are decimated, with seeds coded to only produce one crop, and a class divide designed to keep those outside the citadels reliant upon their "generosity." Vesper lives with her paralyzed father (Richard Brake) in the woods. Her mother is part of a group of people scavenging for technology and supplies, and a short way away Vesper's uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan) lives a callous existence involving harvesting children's blood to sell to citadel residents.
While this could be the entire content of the film, the real story begins when a citadel ship crashes near Vesper's woodland home, and she helps an injured passenger called Camellia (Rosy McEwen). Matters are complicated further when it's revealed that Camellia is a highly advanced Jug, almost indistinguishable from a real human including having real emotions. In the post-apocalyptic world they live in, Jugs with this much advancement are forbidden, and so Camellia and her maker Elias were trying to escape when their ship crashed. Together, Vesper and Camellia discover the secret of unlocking seeds so that people can have continuous harvests, while trying to keep her poisonous uncle Jonas from handing Camellia over to the citadel.
From the beginning of the film, it's hard not to be drawn into Vesper's world as she digs in a muddy expanse, shrouded in a thick fog as her hovering, smiley-faced drone accompanies her. As the shot widens, large jellyfish-like structures can be seen dotting the landscape. They are decrepit and rusted, and loom like specters over the land. As Vesper journeys back to her home, the world looks exactly like the planet we know — until a tree pulsates in the foreground as she passes, and strange flatworm-snake creatures poke up out of the ground trying to nip at her heels. The real shock is still to come as she enters her home, and it is revealed that she is caring for her paralyzed father. He is hooked up to a variety of tubes and hoses, and communicates with her through the drone that follows her around.
Clearly forced into independence and hardship from an early age, Vesper is an extraordinarily intelligent and capable girl. She also leads a desperately sad life. Her situation is tinged with deep and bone-crushing sorrow, only compounded by her uncle's callous refusal to help her and her father without something in return. After stealing seeds from Jonas and showing her father, saying she is going to hack the seeds and work as a citadel scientist one day, he replies with "Oh Vesper, you don't know the cost of dreams."
The world around Vesper seems designed to crush hope, but she stands fast in her belief that there is more that can be done to help the world, and that she can have a part in it. When she finds Camellia, there is hope that rescuing her will pave her way into the citadel, but it soon becomes clear that it will instead be a chance meeting that could change the world.
Vesper is at times stark and barren, and at others, beautiful and full of strange life. There is a scene between Vesper and Camellia where Vesper brings her an old book of animals that no longer roam, and Camellia tells her what each one is and how it sounded. Following this exchange, Vesper brings her a harp-like instrument and the two make music. Immediately after this scene, Vesper goes to her uncle's "orphanage" where she finds him tampering with her drone, and then finds the body of a child that helped her steal from him in the woods.
Vesper is both heartbreaking and hopeful, diving into the depths of despair and leaving its characters and audience there for longer than is comfortable. It tackles heavy issues like grief, purpose, and the horrors of the family with nuance and sensitivity. It's set in a world that is ours but still alien, hostile but beautiful. Vesper is an undeservedly overlooked film from 2022, and deserves a legion of fans and accolades.