Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nowhere’ on Netflix, A Dystopian Tale of Solo Survival at Sea

It’s fairly common to hear pregnant women described as superheroes for enduring the pain necessary to participate in the miracle of life. But few earn the distinction quite like Mia in Nowhere (now streaming on Netflix). Not since Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place has an expectant mother faced so much peril — how many women have to deliver on their own in a shipping container in the middle of open water, after all?

NOWHERE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In a future Europe that has once again fallen prey to the evils of totalitarianism, a married couple plots their escape from Spain as the “Not Enough for All” plan targets pregnant women and children. Nico (Tamar Novas) manages to get out with relatively little resistance, but the same does not apply to his pregnant wife Mia (Anna Castillo). After escaping one massacre of expectant mothers, she must continue to fight her life on the seas after sneaking into a maritime container. After a shipwreck unmoors her from the barge she was tied to, Mia must fight for her life with every bit of resourcefulness she has — especially when her baby arrives early and gives her another body to protect.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This has a straight-to-streaming Alfonso Cuarón quality about it, starting with the dystopian terror of societal collapse from Children of Men and leading to a woman surviving on her own in the elements like Gravity.

Performance Worth Watching: Anna Castillo absolutely commits as Mia. At best, she has a baby to act opposite in any given scene, so it’s on her to make all the magic happen.

Memorable Dialogue: “I love you more than yesterday” / “but less than tomorrow” is Mia and Nico’s favorite repeated phrase of amorous affirmation. It’ll make you want to cue up The Spiral Starecase!

Sex and Skin: Breastfeeding!

Our Take: This film makes the mistake so many survival tales do, and yet the lesson never seems to take hold. Simply inflicting trauma after trauma upon a lead does not automatically make their struggles interesting! Even if that character has some kind of extraordinary obstacle like being pregnant in a world that targets expectant mothers, the need for doing actual character work does not magically disappear. Nowhere feels like little more than a screenwriting and directing challenge for Albert Pintó: how do you make one person fighting against all odds interesting? Some sequences manage to pack a punch, but there aren’t nearly enough of these to sustain 110 minutes of treading in familiar waters.

Our Call: SKIP IT. You’ll feel like you’ve seen Nowhere somewhere before. It’s a standard-issue survival story that has nothing of note to say about the character forced to fend for herself or the society that abandons her.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.