Fly Me to the Moon
|It was a promise made by President John F Kennedy on Wednesday 12th September 1962, that the agencies of the United States of America would put a man on the Moon by the end of that decade, and thus was born the Apollo programme of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, determined to fulfil that promise and beat the similar programme of the opposing Soviet Union to that goal.
An undertaking of unimaginable complexity requiring expertise across mathematics, engineering and multiple branches of science, the cost was huge in terms of resources, cash and also in lives, and with each dollar added to the budget the project fell further from favour with the public and the politicians paying the bill for a prize largely symbolic, a problem for those charged with ensuring successful completion of the mission.
Opening with a montage of newsreel footage and iconic imagery from the decade in which the space race ran fastest, director Greg Berlanti’s Fly Me to the Moon is a fictional retelling of a what might have taken place behind the scenes in the offices and assembly rooms of NASA in the final stages before launch in the summer of 1969, exasperated director Cole Davis (Jupiter Ascending’s Channing Tatum) given a booster in the form of marketing maverick Kelly Jones (Black Widow’s Scarlett Johansson) when she is sent into his orbit by Moe Berkus (Zombieland’s Woody Harrelson).
A government official who prefers to keep off the radar, Jones’ mission is quite the opposite, putting the Apollo project firmly in the hearts and minds of the American public, making Destination Moon as patriotic as mom and apple pie, though despite his admitted attraction to her on their first chaotic meeting Davis is wary of her, disliking her presence, her interference, the liberties she takes and the methods she employs, Jones a chameleon who recreates herself for every encounter to charm a recalcitrant senator.
Promoted as something of a romantic comedy, at over two hours that would be insufficient to power Fly Me to the Moon, and though there are parallels with that genre, particularly in Johansson who could pass as a sixties starlet who would have appeared in such a film had it been made in the period, there are also aspects of a caper movie but all is the underpinned and driven by the mission itself, the scope, technical challenges and complex mindset of those responsible depicted with veracity and sensitivity even in the wilder fantasies pursued.
An entertaining alternative history launched from the same pads as For All Mankind though the direction taken could not be more different, Fly Me to the Moon honours the thousands of dedicated people who made the real events happen, a celebration of pushing science and telling stories, of courage and collaboration, powered by considerable charm of the two leads alongside a supporting cast including Jim Rash, Ray Romano and Anna Garcia and a stray cat appropriately called Mischief.
Fly Me to the Moon will be on general release from Friday 5th July