Robert Pattinson in a scene from Claire Denis’ High Life. Courtesy of A24.

For her first English-language film, renowned French director Claire Denis sends Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche into space on a mission to a black hole. Beautiful yet bleak, High Life is more contemplative and ambitious than the typical space drama, but it perhaps does not rank among the best works of the 72-year-old innovative auteur director who gave us Beau Travail and 35 Shots Of Rum.

The director co-wrote the script with Jean-Pol Fargeau. High Life opens on a spaceship far out among the stars, with a man (Pattinson) and a baby as the sole survivors. We know there is a backstory to this, and eventually it is revealed in flashback. The film has moments of violence, bursts of sometimes graphic sexuality, and maintains a creepy tension, but it also moves slowly for most of its running time,...