Film Review: Fly Me to the Moon

Fly Me To The Moon
Director: Greg Berlanti
Berlanti-Schecter Films, These Pictures
In Theaters: 07.12

While not all of the true stories of the early days of the Space Program have been told on film by now, the best of them have been done to near perfection, though in some cases, they’ve been heavily fictionalized and romanticized. Fly Me To The Moon takes a step further with a story that’s plausibly presented and highly accurate to the larger details of the time, yet it’s both entirely fictional and decidedly romantic.

In the mid 1960s, following the tragic fire that resulted the deaths of the crew of the Apollo 1, the American government is losing confidence in NASA and the pressure is on to get both the Senate and the American people back on board with sending men to the moon. Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), a mysterious government employee who operates in the shadows, hires marketing expert Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story, Black Widow) to retool NASA’s public image. Kelly goes to work with bold ideas that include product tie-ins, from watches to a powered orange juice substitute called Tang. While much it seems to be working, her presence and the selling of the Apollo mission as a product doesn’t sit well with launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum, Magic Mike, Logan Lucky), though the two end up forming a more than amicable working relationship. When Kelly comes up with the idea of mounting a camera on the lunar module to broadcast the landing on live television, Cole balks at it, though the enthusiasm of the President makes that a top priority. The idea hits a snag, however, when it raises the profile of the mission to a point where the pressure to succeed and best Russia becomes so high that Kelly is ordered to carry out a rather unconventional backup plan: creating a fake moon landing on a soundstage, to be broadcast as a contingency.

Fly Me To The Moon isn’t just a movie set during the ‘60s, in many ways, it’s a throwback to the  old-fashioned romantic comedies of that era, albeit one that deviates from the norms of the time by showcasing confident, capable women and tacks well-deserved potshots at Richard Nixon. Director Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon) captures both the look of NASA during that period and the filmmaking style of the time with detailed precision, and there’s a lot of nostalgic value for those of who group up  astronauts as heroes, as well as watching Cary Grant, Doris Day or Rock Hudson movies with our parents on television. The obvious complaint is that Fly Me To Moon isn’t a true story, and some audiences may mistake it for one, is larely irrelevant. It’s a smart and sassy comedy that interweaves fact with fiction, and presents the most essential details with accuracy. While First Man and Apollo 13 are still the go to films for historical representation, Fly Me To The Moon to moon blasts off into the stratosphere of speculative fiction with an infectious glee, having fun with the long debated conspiracy theories about a faked moon landing without every giving them any real credence, exploring the logistics in an amusing “what if” scenario while poking fun at them at the same time.

Johansson is a Hollywood star for the ages, one who evokes the elegance and presence of the starlets of the golden age while bringing a range and expert sense of comic timing that is distinctly her own. Tatum has never been better, giving one of the most relaxed and believable performances of his career. While he’s awfully good looking to be the behind-the-scenes brains of the project—the character is loosely based on Apollo’s Chief Flight Director, Gene Kranz, so memorably portrayed by Ed Harris in Apollo 13—Tatum is credible because of the passionate beliefs in the mission he brings to the role, and he’s a great match to Hollywood’s romantic leading men of the time. Ray Romano (The Irishman, Somewhere in Queens) gets plenty of laughs as Henry Smalls, Cole’s closet friend and co-worker. There’s something exhilarating about watching Romano and Tatum playing so many scenes of of each other with comic precision and dramatic heft, especially when you consider that one is a former standup comedian and the other a dancer and model and neither one could truly act when they first gained screen stardom. Harrelson is delightfully despicable as Moe Berkus, the shady government fixer.

Fly Me To The Moon is nothing more and nothing less than an enjoyable romcom with just enough history to hopefully steer audiences who want to know more in the right direction. It may not be a voyage to the moon and back, but if you’re just looking for a  diverting trip to the movies, Fly Me To The Moon plots a perfect trajectory. –Patrick Gibbs 

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