A group of death row co-eds volunteer for a scientific suicide mission in space led by an artificial insemination obsessed doctor (also an inmate) to collect energy from a black hole and are forbidden to have sex with one another. Unsurprisingly, the ship's specialized masturbation chamber can't keep them satisfied and the resulting sexual frustration mixed with the unethical experimentation taking place and the whole crew realizing that "hey, this situation sucks, I hate everyone around me, and we're never going home" leads to a breaking point full of murder, rape, and self-inflicted loss of life. What is surprising though is that the movie doesn't get interesting until all this stuff passes and we're left with the sole survivor taking care of an infant. The concept of a science-fiction movie about a man raising a child by himself in the total isolation of the final frontier with no hope of outside support is a compelling one and I wish that had been the focus of the movie rather than all the other stuff. Instead it's just used as a means of delivering a message about beauty blooming from tragic circumstances. Which kind of works, but a lot of its power is robbed by the story being told in a nonlinear manner. High Life literally opens with the protagonist already struggling to be a parent on his own and makes it very clear that everyone else has died beforehand. So when the narrative starts playing catch-up to show us how he arrived in this position, not only is there no tension in the proceedings because we know every character's ultimate fate, but worse it all feels rather pointless as we were informed what the big takeaway is supposed to be at the very beginning. These missteps mean that the plot isn't able to generate the level of interest it should, which leaves the film to rely on its visuals and imagery to try and captivate. There are certainly moments that will capture your attention and stick with you long after the credits have rolled due to how graphic they are. However, High Life has a problem here as well in that there simply aren't enough of them. The most memorable of the bunch, a grandiose display of self-pleasure, takes place relatively early on making the rest of the running-time a bit of a slog as most of what follows isn't nearly as shocking or disgusting as it thinks it is outside of the regular appearance of semen onscreen. You also have to consider that all of this is taking place to convey the horrible things humans are capable of when horny, frustrated, and have no release. Not exactly original territory. Where it succeeds the most is on the design of the ship itself. The drab, almost rundown looking corridors and bunking really reflect the hopelessness of these criminals venture, with the garden offering the only source of happiness or potential in the surroundings in the same way the baby does in the lead's life. I can see why this has received so much praise, and I definitely appreciate what is was attempting to do, but it fell short for me in a few key ways. The primary one being how it was told. Had things of played out in chronological order I wouldn't have been so disappointed. Given the feature's fixation on carnal desire, I think the best way to describe it would be to say it shoots its load too early. The climax occurs at the start rather than after a steady build-up of pleasure, preventing what little sentimentality there is at the conclusion from being able to satisfy.