It seems overly quaint now, but there was a time that when asked what they wanted to be growing up, a fair number of children would answer ‘astronaut.’ And who could blame them? According to what they saw on film and television, to go to space meant having the opportunity to ride a rocket out of orbit, exploring the galaxy and its undiscovered wonders. Perhaps you’d run into a rogue planet filled with extra-terrestrials, but it was all in a day’s work. Astronauts were indestructible heroes who came home to parades and awaited their next mission.

This was back when the thriving space program was a highly selective, aspirational endeavor with the full support and funding of a government committed to dedicating resources to the galaxy’s far reaches. Though decades apart, the 1986 Challenger disaster and the 2003 Columbia tragedy cast a grim pall over the astronaut program. While NASA continues its groundbreaking research, some of the more familiar aspects of its program (i.e., the Space Shuttle) have changed course. Despite showing its age twenty-five years after its creation, the International Space Station (I.S.S.) remains functional and staffed, a Switzerland of sorts in the stars.

A collaboration between the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan, and the European space programs, the I.S.S. is used as a testing ground for the effects of space travel on an organism. Weightlessness, radiation, solar flares, electrostatic disruptions, and even the weather in space are just a few of the conditions that may be studied by representatives sent by the countries that helped build the 990,000-pound vessel. Since its creation, films and IMAX documentaries have utilized the I.S.S. as a set piece, including 2013’s stunningly orchestrated Gravity and the sci-fi horror Life in 2017.  Yet, to my knowledge, a full feature hasn’t been set entirely within its walls. Now there is.

The day after Dr. Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose, Wish) arrives as the newest scientist to board the I.S.S., a global event they can see from orbit pits her crew from the U.S.A. against the team from Russia.  Before lines of communication are entirely cut off, their respective governments instruct them to obtain control of the space station by force if necessary. With no connection to the ground, paranoia growing, and decisions based on conjecture overtaking rational thinking, Foster must decide whether to ally herself based on borders or consider a risky allegiance to survive and save the rest of the planet in the process.

Considering they were working with what I imagine was a smaller budget, the filmmakers behind I.S.S. have made a respectably tense space thriller that convincingly puts its characters in considerable jeopardy even as the rest of the world is going through its own crisis. We never know quite what has happened on Earth, but it doesn’t look pretty, and who knows if anyone who survives the tense atmosphere on the space station will even want to return to the mess that will await them after landing.

Screenwriter Nick Shafir shrewdly structures the narrative to keep the focus within the confines of the space lab. Despite a few brief detours outside for a suspense sequence, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Our Friend, Blackfish) ratchets up the pressure on her actors in the cramped internal spaces.

With six speaking roles, Cowperthawaite needed to get her casting right, and she’s about 80% successful in her mission.  At first, I wasn’t sure if DeBose was well cast as a mousy researcher, but she gradually shows that she’s taken great care in building a fully formed person from the ground up and allowed audiences in at a specific point in the journey. As the situation quickly changes, her character has to adapt as well.  Without having to show off her dynamic musical gifts, she can still strike the right notes with her acting.  I especially liked her chemistry with Chris Messina (The Boogeyman) as senior crew member Gordon. He’s trying to hide a romance that has developed with Weronika (the also solid Maria Mashkova, appearing in Apple T.V.’s For All Mankind, another space-focused series), though how the two ever concealed their moon-eyed tryst is anyone’s guess.

If Pilou Asbæk’s (Run Sweetheart Run) role as a Russian scientist with a swiftly shifting loyalty makes your head spin, it’s more of a fault of the writing, which comes off like it needed one more character to flesh out some plot contrivances (the I.S.S. does hold 7, after all). The main antagonists on either side of the anti-gravity aisle (and to audiences) are Costa Ronin (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), unable to find much distance to travel with his one-dimensional order follower, and an overly whiny John Gallagher Jr. (Underwater) in a rare miss. Overacting so much you think he’ll gnaw a black hole through the center of the action, Gallagher pitches himself at a higher frequency than the rest of his castmates, making the rest seem like they are rehearsing Ibsen.

Technology has come so far since films like Apollo 13 came out in 1995 that it is increasingly more believable to portray life in space. In I.S.S., there are several impressive visuals that, while far from rising to awards-worthy transportation outside our atmosphere, more than get the job done.  The actors must also sell this, bobbing and swaying to simulate weightlessness, some better than others. Natural movers like DeBose favor the smooth movements, while Asbæk and Messina (who is excellent in a campy kind of way) are the most on target.  It can be comical to watch the differences, especially when Gallagher doesn’t even try.

Releasing to theaters but better enjoyed at home, which hides its limitations, I.S.S. isn’t terrific entertainment, but with the filmmakers and cast involved, it’s several levels above the norm. Watchable but forgettable, it will serve your need for a Saturday night space thriller but just as soon be vaporized from your memory.