Sending the unlikeliest of people into space–from Jason Voorhees to Homer Simpson–has always been a crowd-pleasing move. So it should come as no surprise that Shelagh McLeod finds the same results in her feature directorial debut Astronaut, which sends seventy-one year old Richard Dreyfuss into the heavens, in perhaps the Oscar winner’s best performance in years.
Maya (22 Jump Street’s Amber Stevens West) is left scrambling when she finds her fiancé “fooling around” with another girl. Having met the man of her dreams while visiting Africa, she returns home with a lie that will convince her parents that she still has her life on track. A kind stranger named Malcolm (Shamier Anderson) meets Maya during his own panic as a greedy former friend (Tyrell played by Lyriq Bent) chases him down….