"Cosmic Dawn" is the type of movie you hope to run across when you are perusing the new releases. It's an engrossing and entertaining little film that almost defies categorization.
The movie starts with Aurora on a camping trip with her mother, where she sees her mother apparently abducted by aliens. We jump forward, and Aurora is now fully grown and with some serious issues, needless to say. A chance meeting in a book store with a woman named Natalie leads her to a group of like minded "UFO experience survivors" led by Elyse, who has written a book called "Cosmic Dawn." The movie then jumps four years later, and we spend the movie going back and forth between the timelines, showing us Aurora's experiences with what turns out to be a cult and what is happening four years later when it appears she is being haunted by her past...
"Cosmic Dawn" does just about everything right. It's got an appealing heroine that we are rooting for and a captivating, intelligent storyline that keeps your interest throughout, and it has an ending that pays off. Special effects are good, and not overused. The acting is uniformly excellent, with special kudos to Emmanuelle Chriqui and Joshua Burge as Aurora's closest friends in the cult and Antonia Zegers as the creepy -- but not too creepy -- leader. And model turned actress Camille Rowe is a minor revelation as Aurora, wonderfully straddling the line between belief and non-belief. (And on an aside, she was probably thrilled to get offered a role that doesn't depend on men drooling over her beauty). And "Cosmic Dawn" is the early favorite for "Best Scene in a Movie for 2022", when the leader of a UFO cult leads the cult members in singing Klaatu's "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft."
The movie deftly mixes science fiction, drama, religion, cults, and a small dash of horror into an absolute winner. All in all, "Cosmic Dawn" get an easy recommendation, definitely worth checking out.
