Ryan Hachem
Among the films recently shown at Grand Cinemas, The Dog Stars is a 118-minute post-apocalyptic thriller directed by Ridley Scott and written by Mark L. Smith, adapted from Peter Heller’s 2012 novel. The film stars Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin and Margaret Qualley, with Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong and Allison Janney in supporting roles.
Set in 2035, after a deadly flu pandemic has devastated humanity, the film follows Hig, a young pilot and mechanic who lives at an abandoned airfield in Colorado with his dog Jasper and Bangley, a former Marine and hardened survivalist. Their isolated existence depends on discipline, vigilance and a constant awareness of the dangers beyond their perimeter. When Hig picks up a mysterious radio transmission, his curiosity becomes a desire to discover whether something more than survival is still possible.
The journey takes Hig beyond the security of his familiar world and eventually brings him into contact with Cima and her father, Pops. Cima, a doctor and survivor living with her father in an isolated mountain community, introduces Hig to the possibility of trust and companionship in a world where most encounters are defined by fear and suspicion.
Scott’s approach is strongest when he allows the landscape to carry part of the story. The vast Colorado wilderness, abandoned spaces and open skies give the film a striking sense of scale, while Hig’s small, carefully protected existence makes that landscape feel both beautiful and threatening. The contrast between the enormous world outside and the fragile lives surviving within it becomes one of the film’s most effective visual ideas.
The film also finds its emotional centre in the relationship between Hig, Jasper and Bangley. They represent three different forms of attachment in a world stripped of ordinary human contact. Hig still searches for connection, Bangley has hardened himself against it, while Jasper offers the uncomplicated loyalty that has become increasingly rare around them. As the story moves forward, the loss and loneliness carried by these characters give the survival narrative a more intimate dimension.
Ridley Scott keeps the action grounded in physical space. Rather than filling the film with uninterrupted spectacle, he builds tension around distance, isolation and the possibility of sudden violence. The aerial sequences provide a sense of freedom that contrasts sharply with the vulnerability of life on the ground, while the encounters with hostile survivors bring the danger back to a much more immediate and physical level.
Jacob Elordi gives Hig a restrained performance, allowing the character’s grief and uncertainty to emerge without overstatement. Josh Brolin brings a tougher, more defensive presence to Bangley, creating a convincing contrast between two men who have learned very different ways of surviving. Margaret Qualley gives Cima warmth and emotional depth, gradually opening the story toward something beyond fear and self-preservation.
The film’s main weakness is its uneven balance between contemplation, action and darker material. Its deliberate pace gives the characters and landscape room to breathe, but some stretches feel longer than necessary. The post-apocalyptic premise is also familiar territory, and not every idea introduced by the screenplay receives enough development.
Still, The Dog Stars becomes more compelling when it moves away from the familiar question of how to survive and toward the more difficult question of why. Beneath its devastated landscapes and violent encounters, Scott’s film is ultimately concerned with loneliness, memory, loss and the possibility of rebuilding human connection after almost everything has disappeared.
The world may have ended, but The Dog Stars is less interested in the end itself than in what comes after it: the difficult search for something, or someone, that makes survival worth continuing.
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