U Are the Universe

In the distant future, an average Ukrainian space trucker from Khmelnytskyi named Andriy (Volodymyr Kravchuk, who gives an out-of-this-world performance) is employed by the biggest nuclear waste disposal company in Eastern Europe. After 150 years of using nuclear energy, humanity has accumulated more than 3 billion tons of waste, held in temporary storage facilities. Unfortunately, due to an increasing number of earthquakes, radiation is destroying life on the planet.

Aboard a cargo ship named Obriy, Andriy is on a four-year round-trip mission to transport nuclear waste from Earth to Jupiter’s moon Callisto. His vessel is equipped with a lounge, gym, kitchen, and bedroom, as well as a robot named Maxim (Leonid Popadko) to keep him company. Maxim has a joke for every occasion, which comes in handy when the Earth explodes in the far distance and Andriy believes he is now the last living person in the universe — until a call from a French woman named Catherine (voiced by Alexia Depicker and played by Daria Plahtiy) reaches him from a faraway space station. Surprisingly, love blossoms in the post-apocalyptic fallout, and now Andriy’s sole mission becomes to reach her, despite all the obstacles.

Touching the most universal aspects of life — love, loneliness, joy, sadness — U Are The Universe is a genre-bending journey into the soul, infinity… and beyond! Written and filmed during Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Pavlo Ostrikov’s debut feature is a true wonder and a timely reminder of how important it is to connect with someone who understands us, even during the darkest of times.

DOROTA LECH