Parents' Guide to Long Distance

There's a kind of sci-fi movie that mistakes stillness for meaning, and this one flies right into that trap. In Long Distance, everything feels stuck on repeat: the same shots, gestures, and half-hearted attempts at dramatic tension. It's another sad dad in space story that forgets to give us either sadness or wonder. Anthony Ramos, who should've had the career of a lifetime after In the Heights, deserves much better than this. He's a magnetic actor who can command a scene with a single look, yet here he's stranded in a story that doesn't know what to do with him. Naomi Scott brings sincerity and quiet warmth, and together they find flickers of chemistry, though the movie mistakes proximity for connection. It wants us to feel something for two lonely people, but the loneliness is only visual as it never reaches the heart.

What Long Distance really lacks is imagination. The alien world looks unfinished, the danger feels mechanical, and the unearned ending lands with a thud rather than revelation. There's something hollow about a story that keeps promising transcendence but never dares to go beyond the surface. Ramos still shines through the emptiness, he always does, but this film never lets him soar. It's all mood and no meaning, a movie that drifts beautifully but never finds a pulse.