A year ago Vesper's mother left to be part of a group of people called The Pilgrims.

One day a citadel ship crashes nearby and Vesper finds a young woman survivor, Camellia.

Camellia promises to take Vesper and her father to the citadel if they can find the other passenger of the ship, a man named Elias.

Vesper uses seeds stolen from her uncle Jonas' farm for an experiment involving samples from the synthetic Camellia.

Camellia and Vesper run while Darius stays behind and holds off the soldiers by blowing up the house's reactor.

[2][3] In France, Vesper sold 13,352 tickets on its first day, earning fifth place, for 303 copies, behind Where the Crawdads Sing.

The website's consensus reads: "More visually impressive than narratively engaging, Vesper rewards patient viewers with immersive world-building and intelligent ideas.

"[4] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

[17] Olivier Delcroix, writing for Le Figaro, found the film "the result of a string of carefully thought through choices, a very beautiful immersive movie that resembles a strange sci-fi fable, fascinating and otherworldly.

"[18] Philippe Guedj of Le Point found "influences from Cronenberg, Giger, Jim Henson or even Miyazaki", with "the movie zigzagging between a Grimm fairytale mood and a hyperreal painting of a medieval future.

"[19] Ben Croll of TheWrap deemed the film "something wholly unique—at once modern and timeless, nostalgic for a genre only just created, already pining for images freshly cast up on screen.

"[21] Guy Lodge of Variety described it as "a sci-fi film fascinated by earthly survival, not sleek, state-of-the-art spectacle—though it often dazzles just the same", and praised "the sophisticated technical realization of this desperate dystopia...achieved on a budget presumably a fraction of that granted to most franchised Hollywood fantasies".

[22] Writing for New Scientist, Davide Abbatescianni labelled it an "exquisite dystopian sci-fi" with "a Brothers Grimm edge" as well as "a good example of what European science fiction has to offer.

The header summary stated: "Two elements—the design-driven worldbuilding and Vesper's development—keep viewers engaged, but they have to overcome a few weaknesses to do so.