Fly Me to the Moon - Film Review

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A love affair that is over the moon

In the latest rom-com to hit the cinemas in 2024, Scarlett Johansson plays Kelly Jones, a New York-based advertising executive, and Channing Tatum plays Cole Davis, a non-nonsense NASA mission director. Kelly has been tasked by the Nixon Whitehouse to sell the moon and the Apollo Program to the American people. Cole, just wants to focus on the mission, the engineering and keeping the crew safe. But they are also falling for each other. Things go even more awry when Kelly is tasked with preparing fake moon landing footage.



Premise

Basically, the movie takes a lot of liberties with the space program, condensing multiple people who would have worked on the space program into a couple of characters and along with events across a long timeline into a neat little store focused on Apollo 11. The story is true in many ways to the real historical events, and a lot that is basically made up is still true in spirit. It really is about selling the moon program while also ensuring that everything required to make it happen gets done They also manage to put in a bit of a side plot about faking the moon landing as well, or more accurately, faking the real moon landing as the fake is better TV than the real moon landing.



The Good

The movie lovingly recreates the era and the space program. In fact, because the story is Apollo Program adjacent, it does this far better than other movies or TV shows because it can look into different aspects of the era, including the politics, social standards and so on, not just the technical details of landing on the moon. Ultimately, the love affair is about the moon and the space program, and so it shows the program with its quirks and failings as well as its best moments.

Scarlett Johansson is astounding as Kelly Jones. Even in a basic rom-com role she is still bringing a great deal of subtlety to the role. She is also brilliant at showing off her feminine charm, not sexual allure as such, but many of the other ways women can be charismatic and engaging.

Channing Tatum is, as always, a good, not great actor. He manages to be both a hardline, no-nonsense flight director who is also charming, human, and vulnerable at times.



The Bad

As much as I love Woody Harrelson, here as Moe Berkus, he seems a bit out of place. He fails to create an original character with Moe, and while he doesn't have a lot of screen time, his role is pivotal.

While the movie is funny, the funniest moments happen at the end, which in a rom-com is normally when the most heartfelt moments happen.

Evaluating the movie based on the rom-com formula

Rom-coms do tend to lend themselves to a formulaic analysis so I thought I would give it a go here. The basic rule is that there should be 2 people on the screen that you just know should be together, but they don't know that they should be together, and then they get together in the end. The greatest rom-com of all time is When Harry Met Sally because it goes beyond the formula by first convincing the audience that Harry and Sally shouldn't be together at all, then spends the rest of the movie convincing you that they should.

Fly Me to the Moon also plays with the formula to some extent. Here we have two people who do realise that they should be together. They know that they like each other but they have things in their life keeping them apart. But for them to be together they don't just have to realise that they should be together, but they must also share each other's mission. The true romance here is with the moon and the filmmakers knew that and treated the space program like a romantic subject, not merely a setting.

A criticism that could be made here is that the female lead makes the biggest journey, but that is more about this being a female-led story where the character is dealing with her personal issues as well as the social and political realities of the time. At the same time, the male character might appear to make a smaller journey, but because of the tragedy he has experienced, and that the space program and three very important lives are resting on his shoulders, the journey is far more difficult.

Overall

As the comedy goes, the movie has lots of chuckles, but not that many laughs, at least until the end of the movie. It is a pretty decent rom com and also an interesting insight into the 1960s and the space program. Essentially, it is a great date night movie that would also have a wider appeal.

To see in a cinema or not

One of the critical questions about movies these days is whether to see it in the cinema or wait until it becomes available on streaming. Rom-coms are making a resurgence as they are a great date night. Also, while it is a character-driven story, there are some spectacular space launch sequences that are worth experiencing in the theatre. So definitely a cinema experience for lovers and lovers of the Apollo missions.

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