JP Nunez
When I first saw the trailer for Cosmic Dawn, I immediately put it on my to-watch list. I’m a huge fan of both cults and aliens, and this film looked like it was going to combine those two subgenres in an intriguing way. I absolutely couldn’t wait to watch this movie, and now that I’ve seen it, I’m happy to report that I was not disappointed.
Written and directed by Jefferson Moneo, Cosmic Dawn stars Camille Rowe, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Antonia Zegers, Joshua Burge, and Phil Granger. It’s about a young woman named Aurora who witnessed an alien abduction as a child, and as an adult, she joins a mysterious cult whose leader Elyse seems to know everything about her strange experience. Soon afterwards, the cult disbands, but when Elyse returns a few years later, Aurora has to face the group one last time.
Cosmic Dawn is a very slow burn, so if you’re looking for thrills and chills around every corner, this is not the movie for you. In fact, there’s really not much straight up horror in it at all. You get glimpses here and there of a few otherworldly things, but for the most part, the horror is much more subdued and implicit.
It’s all about the atmosphere and the mystery behind Elyse and her cult, and thankfully, those elements work just about perfectly. Let’s start with the atmosphere. The entire film has a very cosmic feel to it, and that’s largely thanks to composer Alan Howarth’s very understated but nevertheless very effective score. It’s super spacey and futuristic, so you can’t help but feel like you’re being transported to another world for an hour and a half.
What’s more, there are also some really trippy visuals in Cosmic Dawn that fit perfectly with the score and contribute to the great atmosphere. They come mainly at the beginning and towards the end of the movie, so you shouldn’t expect them too often, but when you do see them, they’re really cool. And like I said, they fit perfectly with the music, so these two elements form a one-two sensory punch that’ll make you feel like you’re traveling through the cosmos.
Along similar lines, the mystery behind Elyse and her cult also permeates the entire story, and it’s really the heart and soul of Cosmic Dawn. The film is essentially about whether or not she’s the real deal, and it’ll keep you guessing the whole way through. Sometimes I found myself thinking she had to be a charlatan, but other times I was convinced she was a genuine prophet. There’s good evidence to support both sides, so you’ll never really know the truth until the very end.
Now, like any good slow burn, Cosmic Dawn doesn’t rely on atmosphere and mystery alone. Above all else, this film stands or falls on the strength of its characters, and they were arguably the best thing about it. While I wasn’t sold on all of them right away, they won me over soon enough, so even when nothing too interesting was happening on screen, I always enjoyed seeing these people interact with one another.
In particular, I have to give special mention to the three characters who bore the majority of the storytelling burden. First, we have Aurora, the star of the show. Actress Camille Rowe absolutely nails everything the character goes through, so you completely believe her entire journey. She’s strong and defiant when she needs to be, but she also pulls off weak and vulnerable just as easily.
Secondly, we have Elyse, who’s played wonderfully by Antonia Zegers. She’s perfect as the charismatic cult leader people gravitate to, so you totally understand why the other characters believe she’s a prophet and follow her.
Last but not least, there’s Natalie, one of Elyse’s most dedicated disciples. She’s played by Emmanuelle Chriqui, and she’s the one who brings Aurora into the cult. When you first meet her, she has that stereotypical, seemingly brainwashed sense of calm that we often associate with cult members, but as the story progresses, she goes through a few changes that you might not expect. This character arc requires some impressive acting chops from Chriqui, and thankfully, she pulls it off perfectly.
All that being said, I do have to acknowledge that Cosmic Dawn isn’t perfect. Like any movie, it has its fair share of flaws, and there were two in particular that stood out to me. First, the story jumps back and forth between the present and the time when Aurora joined the cult, and those jumps can be a bit confusing at first.
See, most of the time, the film doesn’t tell you when those changes occur, so you have to figure it out for yourself. It’s not too hard once you get used to it, but the first few times it happens, you don’t expect it, so it takes you a minute or two to get your temporal bearings straight. It can take you out of the movie a bit, and while you shouldn’t have any problem getting back into it, that’s not something that should ever happen in the first place.
Secondly, Cosmic Dawn is a bit too slow at times. While the characters, the atmosphere, and the mystery do a great job of carrying the film on the whole, there were a couple of times when I wished things could’ve happened at a slightly quicker pace. In those moments, it felt like the movie was focusing so much on the characters that the plot ground to a halt, and while I enjoyed these characters, they’re not so great that they could carry the film without any plot movement whatsoever.
But in the grand scheme of things, those two complaints are relatively minor. The time jumps stopped bothering me pretty quickly, and the pace became too slow only a couple of times, so on the whole, the strengths of Cosmic Dawn far outweigh its flaws. It has a great atmosphere, an intriguing mystery, and super likable characters that carry it from beginning to end, so if you like slow-burn chillers about aliens or cults (or both!), I think you’re really going to enjoy this film.
Cosmic Dawn hits theaters and VOD on February 11.
