These ‘Passengers’ Publicity Photos Prove Chris Pratt’s Character Is a Total Creep
In Morten Tyldum’s Passengers, Chris Pratt’s Jim and Jennifer Lawrence’s Aurora Lane are the only passengers on a spaceship who wake up 90 years too soon. Alone and stranded in space, Aurora and Jim go on dinner dates, take late night dips in the pool, and quickly fall in love. Sounds sweet, huh? Just look at the film’s marketing, in which Pratt adoringly gazes at the woman he loves. But Passengers has a much creepier and troubling premise buried beneath the veneer of a love story. Once you realize the film’s “twist,” those publicity photos reveal Pratt’s character for the creep he really is.
Spoiler alert.
In Passengers, Aurora doesn’t wake up on accident. After suffering a year of loneliness on the ship by himself, Jim sees Aurora fast asleep in her pod, does the futuristic equivalent of Facebook stalking, talks about her obsessively to Michael Sheen’s robot, then decides to wake her up and lie about it. Ah, romance built on deceit, how charming! Eventually Aurora falls for Jim, and the movie celebrates him as a hero and excuses his behavior because who cares about consent, and gosh darn it, Chris Pratt’s just so likable! But is he?
Take a closer look at the publicity stills from Passengers. Pratt creepily stares at Lawrence, and often from behind, not just once, but 10 times. Girl can’t even eat her breakfast muffin in peace without this guy drooling over her shoulder. Based on these photos, Passengers sure looks like a creepy horror thriller about a sociopath obsessing over a woman in space. If only Sony made that movie, and not a sappy romance that glorifies Stockholm syndrome.