IO
WARNING : Spoilers forIOahead .
What go on at the oddment ofIO , and what does it all think ? Netflix ’s newest film is a markedly different undertaking from late releases likeMowgliorRoma . While those are massive production from titans of the flick manufacture , IOis a much smaller work , a sci - fi dramatic play from budding Gallic director Jonathan Halpert in only his second feature article motion picture .
Despite including some licit Hollywood lineage in its three - piece cast , among them MCU alum Anthony Mackie , IOis far from a lavish production . Taking lieu almost entirely within one location , the environmentally - witting motion picture depict a skinny - future where the Earth ’s environment has become suddenly inhospitable , hale the human raceway to leave alone . believe she can still fix things , geneticist Margaret Qualley ’s Sam choose to stay behind and research in a makeshift lab until the very last minute , while Mackie ’s Micah tries to convert her to depart with him , lead to the semisweet finale .
Related : take in The IO Trailer
Here , we ’re going to break downIO ’s ending , serve some of its more confound questions , and figure out what all of it is attempt to say .
What Actually Happens At The End Of IO?
At the end ofIO , Micah and Sam make a break for the last wave of departing spacecraft for the human settlement near Jupiter ’s moon Io . shortsighted on helium for Micah ’s spicy - air balloon , Sam guides them to a stockpile of helium canister amid the abandoned ship , toxic , and overgrown metropolis nearby . After a scant rest before departure , Sam decides to jaw a local museum , where she gazes at all the art and story on display , resting at the illustrious painting " Leda and the Swan " by Paul Cezanne .
look at the composition , she ’s fall in by Micah who beckon her to impart . rather , she asks Micah , a former instructor with a specialty in authoritative chronicle and lit , to excuse the house painting to her . Micah explain that the swan represents Zeus , who seduces Leda and together they suffer Helen of Troy , a charwoman count to be the most beautiful on Earth . The illustration is the coming together of the Gods and mortal man to make something of incomparable beauty .
Sam explains a dream she keeps having where she ’s not wear a mask and she ’s fine , even though she illume her lighter and the flame burns purpleness . inspire by the picture of Leda , she takes a leap of faith and removes her masque and melody supply , get word she can pass off fine , suggesting she has an immunity the toxic air . She tells Micah to go on to the Exodus settlement while she bide , the last shot being her piece of writing to Micah , telling him about her observe the wafture of an ocean just as she ’d always dream of as she ’s joined by a child , an allusion to Helen of Troy . Just as Leda give birth to god ’s tike , Sam is suggested to have given birth to a young generation , the next phase of organic evolution and survival on the major planet .
What Happened To Earth Before IO?
In a very unmediated appropriation of clime change , IO ’s opening soliloquy excuse that while Earth ’s atmosphere was drop , finally there was an undefined planet - broad shift and short things fail from bit by bit get worse to being uninhabitable . The nations of the world came together and decide to set up the Exodus program , where a colony was built near one of Jupiter ’s moons and ships would bit by bit take as much of the population as possible there in waves .
Dr. Henry Walden , Sam ’s Fatherhood , was of the feeling that life could be relieve , and had been trying to convert people to stay while he researched ways of mutate humans and beast to tolerate the new aura . Some of the stragglers admit Micah , who watched his wife and those around him hunger to death or high-risk , waiting for Walden ’s oeuvre to bear any variety of tangible result .
IOdoesn’t go into too much contingent beyond this on the condition of its apocalypse , but it is state that fresh vegetable are light and wildlife on country and in the ocean are completely give way as far as anyone can differentiate . The camp Dr. Walden had made for he and Sam exist in one of the few remaining pockets of line in the world , but is still susceptible to monumental storms that are radioactive with whatever bump to the atmospheric state , and the air - pockets are dwindling , hence Micah ’s dedication to get he and Sam on one of the last shuttles .
Page 2 of 2:What Micah & Sam’s Story In IO Says About Climate Change
Micah’s Arc In IO Is About The Faults Of The Past
Literally arriving from the clouds at the start ofIO , Micah emerges in his hot - air balloon all of a sudden , landing justly beside Sam ’s home . Micah feed no substantial details on where he came from , create an air of forced nomad - school of thought that was probably how many of the remaining humans kept themselves awake . He had come to face Dr. Walden because he blamed Henry for induce to see his family die while waiting for something good to happen . He describes the horrifying option of flow his married woman so she ’ll populate for a few more daytime , or having a small more food so he can survive for a small longer .
Micah embodies the fault in Dr. Walden ’s hubris . ask multitude to stick while a gradual end - of - day unfolds around them is an incredible matter to do in the name of scientific discipline , and when Henry ’s workplace fail , it ’s no wonder there ’s a resentment . Finding Dr. Walden beat , Micah understands that now that it ’s just he and Sam , all that matters is them both determine a mode off the major planet . Resentment and regret should die with the eternal rest of Earth at this point .
Sam’s Arc In IO Is About Belief & Overcoming Limitations
InIO , Sam had been continuing her deceased father ’s work on hereditary variation . First , she served as his dedicated assistant for some prison term before he died , leaving her to continue the speculation in his lieu . She keep everything from his radio broadcast recordings looking for other people to growing fresh veggie in their nursery .
The process was based around insect and bees . At the start ofIO , she finds some amphibious sprightliness reproducing in a pool , and postulate it back to the chemical compound for further analysis . find any Modern life is rarified , and her hope is to transfer whatever is keeping these things alert to a beehive she hold back for experimentation . It does n’t work , but she remains undeterred .
In the meantime , she is exchanging messages with an unobserved Elon , voice by Tom Payne . The two had a romance before he left on Exodus and had made a plan to rendezvous on the space colony , but her reticence to leave became unlimited denial when Elon informed her he would be give way on a one - way hostile expedition to commence make a nearby hospitable planet quick to re-start human civilization .
Sam is a dedicated environmentalist , which is jolly surprising given that she has next - to - no memory of the metre when Earth was n’t hostile to human life history . In her discussions with Micah , he recount her about nobody being ready for when this affair happened and experience through the first wave all the mode to now . She only live this existence , living off the dusty scraps of a world that once was . A realness new generation may have to face if we do n’t mind the Dr. Waldens of our world now , while we still can .
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NetflixIOpresents a world where climate change and the seeming end of life on Earth is n’t a total end , one where governments snap into action and eventually our planet becomes hospitable again . For all it is a post - society motion-picture show , it has a extremely optimistic knack . What all that does , though , is less extend an olive leg from the future to the present , and more hammer home that it ’s not too late - as long as we take action now .
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