The Man Who Fell to Earth review: a 2022 remake that almost sees a future

When President Grover Cleveland pushed a button to light the 100,000 incandescent lamps at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the luminous glow, which left attendees awestruck in the face of modernity, finally shined the world from the proverbial dark ages toward the future. In Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman’s Showtime limited seriesThe Man who Stole Earth from His Own Grave Tech royalty stare out the windows of a London skyline that is dazzlingly lit with quantum fusion power. They feel a similar sense if promise and wonder.. The show is able to balance mystery and intrigue and madness with lucidity and progress. It doesn’t always set its own world ablaze in the same way, but it manages to offer a hearty spark.

Based on Walter Tevis’ 1963 science fiction novel of the same name, the show’s titular character, Faraday (Chiwetel Ejiofor), crashes from the heavens, naked, in search of water. He is picked up by police and asked for Justin Falls (Naomie Harp), a disgraced MIT quantum physics graduate now shoveling manure at Los Alamos in New Mexico.

Faraday cannot speak. Faraday learns through listening and then regurgitating the information in an array of obscenities. This is what worries all around him. It’s not the first time he’ll face the police. And if there’s one major failing of the series, it’s the color-blind scenarios of Black characters interacting with cops (particularly when Faraday is acting unhinged) but surviving mostly unscathed and ignored, which requires a real suspension of disbelief.

Faraday has been assigned by Thomas Newton (Bill Nighy), an inventor once great, to find a way to save the planet. Unfortunately, his descendants are not aware of him. Before Spencer Clay (Jimmi Simpson), a needling CIA agent, can stop him, Faraday must find Justin, the world’s expert in quantum fusion technology, so they might build a machine that’ll save his planet and Earth from the ravages of climate change. But departing with Faraday on a globetrotting adventure isn’t easy for Justin. For one, she doesn’t know him except as a troubled stranger without personal boundaries; Faraday often says exactly what’s on his mind, no matter how casually cruel or weird he sounds. A young daughter Molly (Annelle Olaleye) and an elderly father Josiah, a charming Clarke Peters, are also her children.

Faraday standing in a sweatshirt while a cop looks on in the background

Bill Nighy as Newton standing in a bush wearing sunglasses and a hat

Justin helping her father, who’s sitting on a couch next to her daughter in The Man Who Fell from Earth

The Man who Fell to the Earth initially subsists on Faraday’s quirkiness. Ejiofor can deliver a torrential accent in a William Shatner style. His spasms and kinetic physical energy offer a full range of emotions that at once dole out laughs and heartache — if given the chance, he would’ve made a great Doctor in Doctor Who. Simply put, this show isn’t afraid to be silly: In one scene Faraday, searching for water, sticks a few feet of garden hose down his throat. He vomits gold rings that he wants to pawn in another scene.

Similar to the 1976 film starring David Bowie (who was always like an alien in his own right), Lumet and Kurtzman lean toward Tevis’ meditations on apocalypses and human error. Enter Harris’ Justin, a brilliant woman hiding her genius because of a mistake she committed long ago. The emotive Harris usually provides major wattage, and she doesn’t disappoint here, as she crumbles and rebuilds to craft a character whose strength resides not in her anger but her admittedly shaky moral center. Ejiofor and Harris add an immeasurable amount of power to the series, which sometimes slows down to crawl while it examines various apocalyptic scenarios.

The adaptation’s themes can often leave a bad taste in your mouth too. At one point, it resorts to ableism, pitching one character’s disability as a burden for their family, leading to a moment reminiscent of The Green Mile. Admirably, writers desire to create The Man who Fell to the EarthThis is a comment on refugees. In fact, the series begins in the future with Faraday, a tech master in Steve Jobs’s style, speaking to an audience of fans. He claims he’s an immigrant, and that he will be telling his story. But what are the key elements to an immigrant’s story? Certainly, there’s the fish-out-of-water element of being a traveler in a strange land with odd customs and a difficult language barrier. The series does not address its political aspect, despite being filmed in America by several levels of law enforcement. Admittedly, only four of the show’s 10 episodes were screened for review, but so far, the immigrant component is reedy at best.

Faraday and Justin standing next to a truck; him holding up a tech gizmo and her with arms folded looking at him while leaning against a truck

Despite all its thematic flaws, this series offers visual delightment. The series’ wide-ranging views of desert landscapes emphasize the repeated nature of desolation and infuse the rugged terrain with the unexplainable spirit. The cinematic lighting in particular, as it cuts sharp beams through austere compositions, emphasizes the series’ tinge of thriller, as does the thrumming score. Tranquil waters do flow through some episodes, such as Ejiofor and Peters dueting on “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” (it’s as adorable as it sounds) as well as Faraday and Falls supporting the other, even when everyone doubts them.

An unmistakable urgency pushes The Man Who Fell to Earth — not just in Faraday’s mission and his belief in the ends justifying the means, but the environmental criticism guiding his journey and ours. The world is changing. People in power don’t seem to care about the fact that our planet is dying. The damage is likely to be irreversible sooner than we realize. Faraday is from a world in which the only way for time to be reversed requires that he travels through time and space. We allow petty grievances and rivalries to destroy our collective future. Most likely because we’re human. It’s our flaw and our strength. When the light is most bright, we can look for the future and smash the switch when it reveals a dark truth.

The Man who Fell to the Earth is filled with those truths but doesn’t necessarily smash the switch or even reinvent it. There is a narrative universe that the series could explore, where it might be more bizarre and boundary-pushing. It needs to be strengthened before the thematic investments in the show yield solid results. But, it’s worth looking at because of its good performances and eccentric tone, which is full of tantalizing storytelling opportunities.

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