What we see on-screen, for the most part, in Ridley Scott‘s The Martian (based on Andy Weir’s popular sci-fi novel) is Matt Damon playing an astronaut, stranded on Mars, who must be resourceful on a resource-less planet in order to return to earth. From that simple premise spawns more entertainment than we’ve seen from Scott in years as we follow the Martian misadventures of Damon’s Mark Watney as he “sciences the shit” out of his dire situation with the (remote) help of his earth-bound astronautic team and the bright minds at NASA.

The movie’s trailers would have you expecting a white-knuckle, isolation-horror story along the lines of Gravity. I was pleasantly surprised, however (as someone who hasn’t read the book), to find a movie that’s optimistic, warm, very funny, and very much un-scary. This is much lighter material than the marketing would have you believe, and that’s a good thing.

The tone is set from the beginning with Mark and his team surveying the martian surface for, uh, science reasons. Mark rattles off smartass quips rapid-fire, and judging from his crew-mates’ joking, amused reactions, it’s clear they’re a tight-knit group. Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) leads the team, who refer to each other on a last-name basis. Martinez (Michael Peña), Johanssen (Kate Mara), Beck (Sebastian Stan), and Vogel (Aksel Hennie) find outer-space comfort in clowning on their good buddy Watney. Suddenly, a violent rock storm barrels through the work site and a piece of equipment slams into Mark, hurtling him into the darkness. Believing their friend dead, the team leaves the planet surface before the storm tears their ship to pieces.

Despite being left to his own devices, Mark finds a way to keep yapping: returning to the Mars base, he starts keeping a video log for whoever or whatever. It mostly keeps him sane as he MacGuyvers his way through the litany of problems that comes with being stranded on an inhospitable planet. The most pressing issue initially is Mark’s limited food supply; should he eventually find a way to contact earth or his crewmates, his current stock of NASA microwaveable meals wouldn’t keep him alive long enough for a rescue team to reach him. Thankfully, Mark’s a botanist, and he figures out a way to make his own water and grow an indoor garden, which bears enough potatoes to keep him going for the foreseeable future.

Much like in Robinson Crusoe and Robert Zemeckis’ Castaway, it’s a delight to watch our hero use his brainpower and willpower to gradually build a little life for himself in a hopeless place. It also doesn’t hurt that Damon finds his groove with the smart and savvy material, adapted by Drew Goddard from the book. Some of the jokes are pretty corny, but Goddard’s always had a knack for making even the cornball-iest comedy sing. Mark’s bright-side attitude is charming: when he runs out of ketchup for his potatoes, he dips them in crushed-up Adderall and jokes bout it; when it dawns on him that, because he’s grown potatoes on Martian soil, he’s technically colonized the planet, he sticks his chin up in the air like a proud child. The movie’s nearly two-and-a-half hours long, but Damon’s so entertaining that it’s a swift, streamlined watch.

The story hops back to earth regularly, where a crowded cast of mostly insignificant NASA officials debate how to tell the grieving public that Mark Watney is not deceased, as they originally reported, as well as figure out a way to bring him back home before his food runs out or a random equipment malfunction kills him. Jeff Daniels and Chiwetel Ejiofor have the most prominent roles as the two highest ranking NASA brains, with the rest of the home planet cast filled out by the likes of Donald Glover, Sean Bean, Mackenzie Davis, Benedict Wong, and Kristen Wiig, who’s in such a nothing role it’s sad. Chastain and the rest of the crew rejoin the story later, after NASA decides how to break the news to them that their friend is still alive.

The visual effects are as spectacular as they need to be, but the movie isn’t enamored with them like too many sci-fi dramas are. Mars looks totally convincing and serene, but the focus is always on what and how Mark’s doing. In essence, Weir’s story is about the wonder and power of science and how the human spirit can unlock its true beauty. None of the action scenes rival anything you’ll see in Interstellar or Gravity, but the that’s not what this movie’s about, after all, which is refreshing. The Martian won’t please those expecting a dark, terrorizing thrill ride where the heroes are in constant peril, but it’ll make the rest of us laugh and cheer, which is something sci-fi blockbusters don’t do enough these days.

Meryl Streep plays dive bar rockstar Ricki Rendazzo in Ricki and the Flash, a movie that, like its leather-wearing, guitar-shredding protagonist, is a lot softer and harmless on the inside than on its edgy exterior would indicate. It’s directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Diablo Cody, and along with Streep stars her daughter, Mamie Gummer, Kevin Kline, Sebastian Stan and Rick effing Springfield. The stacked crew of talent fashions a generally low-key family drama with a few surprises up its sleeve, making for a pleasant summertime distraction.

Working at a Total Foods by day (a Whole Foods stand-in) and jamming out sets of cover tunes in front of modest crowds at The Salt Well with her band, The Flash, by night, 60-something Ricki’s carved out a quaint, unglamorous but artistically fulfilling life for herself in Tarzana, California. She gets into the occasional tiff with her boyfriend/lead guitarist (Springfield), but the townsfolk love her and she’s got a nightly gig, which is more than most starving musicians could ever hope for.

In her previous life, she was called Linda Brummell, and she was living the American Dream, raising three kids with her ex, Pete (Kline). Ricki’s been estranged from them for years, but Pete calls her out of the blue to invite her back to Indianapolis, where he lives with his new wife, Maureen (a pitch-perfect Audra McDonald). Ricki’s split from the family wasn’t a pretty one (we learn more later), so a phone call from Pete is anything but normal, but desperate times call for desperate measures: their daughter, Julie (Gummer), has just been dumped by her fiance, leaving her in a nasty state. Ricki hops on a plane straight away; this is her chance to pick up the pieces and be Julie’s mom again, though Julie isn’t exactly thrilled at the thought of repairing the long-stagnant relationship.

Ricki and Pete’s two sons are even less open to accepting their mom back into their lives. Josh (Stan) is engaged to a pampered rich girl who’s repulsed by his mother’s ’80s rock attire and filthy mouth; Adam (Nick Westrate) is gay and views Ricki as a walking contradiction, her tattoos and progressive attitude a front, in his eyes, for her self-professed Obama-hating, Republican political views. “She voted for Geroge W. Bush!” he screams. It’s clear Ricki and Julie are cut from the same cloth: when they unleash a barrage of fiery barbs on an eavesdropper at a local donut shop, they shoot evil glares over their shoulders in perfect unison, just like the Siamese cats from 101 Dalmatians. Gummer’s uncanny resemblance to her mother makes the scene sing.

Cody’s script tries to juggle too many themes and ideas, abandoning a lot of them on the way. Parental gender inequity and the weight of maternal responsibility define the central narrative arc, but neither feels adequately explored by the end credits. What comes through the loudest and proudest is the beauty and power of Ricki’s passion for music, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering who’s sitting the director’s chair. Demme shoots concert footage better than just about anybody (Stop Making Sense is incomparable), and he flexes that muscle here, capturing perfectly Streep’s gutsy live performances (she sings every song herself and even learned how to play guitar for the role). Highlights include renditions of Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga and Tom Petty classics (and a pop stinker by Pink).

Though Ricki’s maligned by just about everyone in her family for wiggling out of the motherly role she was dealt to run off and pursue another dream, they eventually learn to appreciate her free-wheeling, risk-taking outlook on life. None of the supporting characters are all that complex, but Ricki’s incredibly layered and three-dimensional, many of her core personality traits in direct competition with one another. There’s the George W. Bush thing, but there’s also the fact that she loves her children to death, and yet couldn’t stop herself from leaving them behind to pursue her music career. Streep is almost acrobatic in how she controls a scene, flipping the tone and temperature of a conversation several times with subtle facial expressions and well-timed zingers (provided of course by Cody, the undisputed queen of mean).

The movie’s biggest disappointment is its even-steven ending, which wraps things up too nicely. Things actually get pretty turbulent during the middle section, which caught me off-guard in a good way, but the way Cody resolves every little conflict so neatly is a bit of a let-down. Cody plays it safe, which, unfortunately, puts a damper the quality of everyone else’s work. Streep definitely gets her shine, though, like when she busts out an acoustic guitar for a solo performance of the movie’s one original song, “Cold One,” written by Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice. It’s a super catchy tune that, like the other musical numbers, provides a welcome respite from Cody’s overly tentative writing.