The Hunt For Planet B

93 Minutes / Not Rated

Directed by Nathaniel Kahn

Synopsis:

Capturing the human drama behind NASA’s high-stakes Webb Space Telescope, The Hunt for Planet B follows a pioneering group of scientists—many of them women—on their quest to find another Earth among the stars.

Another documentary from SXSW: The Hunt for Planet B.

To be blunt: the film is a bit muddled.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s a great story, emphasizing humanity’s desire to grow and learn and expand their knowledge of the universe (silly humans!), but it plays like it wants to be a straight “women in STEM” movie (a laudable goal, both from a cinematic and practical point of view), but the director never seems to fully commit to that.

I mean, it’s even in the synopsis: “many of them women”–but the narrative flow of the film continually veers off that point of view when it might get truly interesting to look inside the lives of these brilliant women who perform technological miracles.

At least, that’s how it made me feel while I was watching it.

I don’t know if there was some sort of unconscious fear of alienating a segment of the audience or something similar, but the story of the search for “Planet B” is compelling enough for anyone even remotely interested in the topic…

I just don’t get the reticence.

I’m not certain of an outlet for The Hunt for Planet B, yet, but I still recommend watching it once it finds one, despite its own efforts to hamstring itself.

The Hunt for Planet B features Janet Arenberg, Jon Arenberg, Natalie Batalha, Natasha Batalha, Charles Darrow, Jim Flynn, Elinor Gates, Natalie Guerrero, Nick Lane, Nikole Lewis, and Amy Lo.

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