Film Review — Fly Me to the Moon

Love is in the air for Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in Greg Berlanti’s space race rom-com

Credit: Sony/Apple

One could be forgiven for thinking all the cinematic rocket fuel inherent in the space race has been well and truly burned up in films like The Right Stuff (1983), Hidden Figures (2017), First Man (2018), and so forth. Yet director Greg Berlanti and screenwriter Rose Gilroy prove there are still gems to be mined from one of America’s greatest and most inspiring achievements. Fly Me to the Moon uses a fictionalised version of the Apollo 11 mission as a backdrop to an entertaining rom-com, as sparks fly between Manhattan marketing specialist Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) and NASA launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum).

Kelly is immediately established as both brilliant at her job and something of a con artist in an opening involving a car-related sales pitch to a Mad Men-style all-male audience. She’s then approached by secretive government operative Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), who essentially blackmails her into taking a job to spruce up NASA’s public image to ensure funding and the success of the Apollo 11 mission. Kelly evidently has something dodgy in her past, the precise details of which are not immediately revealed.

An inevitable meet-cute occurs in a café near NASA, with Kelly accidentally setting fire to some papers, and Cole being conveniently present to assist. The attraction is immediate, with Cole being forthright concerning his feelings on the matter. Kelly is charmed, but Cole has to rush away before they can get to know each other better. For instance, the key information about where Kelly is about to work fails to be communicated.

Thus, Cole is surprised, and initially annoyed, to discover Kelly and her assistant Ruby (Anna Garcia) are to have free reign at NASA, given his disapproval of what he sees as their dishonest tactics. The clash of his uptight, scrupulously truthful persona with Kelly’s effortless ability to charm and get her way with dubious methods and outright lies is the primary pleasure of the film. For instance, at one point, Cole is outraged when Kelly uses actors for TV interviews pretending to be their NASA counterparts. She simply shrugs and reminds him he gave her no choice, after insisting the real staff don’t give interviews.

The chemistry between the leads works well, with the always wonderful Johansson on particularly enjoyable form. Of course, it’s only a question of when, rather than if, the truth about Kelly’s past will eventually be discovered by Cole. But will he discover her greatest deception? Moe instructs Kelly to secretly build a set that will fake the moon landing, for use in case anything goes wrong with the broadcast from the real moon. Kelly does this under protest, but with the threat of blackmail hanging over her head, reluctantly brings in amusingly diva-ish commercials director Lance Vespertine (a scene-stealing Jim Rash) to helm the top-secret exercise. “I think we should have gotten Kubrick,” she quips; a joke at the expense of conspiracy theorists who believe Kubrick faked the moon landing for NASA.

Speaking of conspiracy theories, to set everyone’s mind at ease, this film in no way suggests the moon landing was faked. It is also clearly fiction. Therefore, there is no case to answer to the history police. As for the Apollo 11 mission itself, the drama of that extraordinary event cannot help but prove inspiring yet again, even in this highly fictional context.

Overall, Fly Me to the Moon isn’t groundbreaking cinema, but it has some of the screwball romance traditions of Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), in that it is frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious, as well as occasionally quite touching. I found it immensely endearing, and in that all-important test, I left the cinema feeling much happier than when I arrived. As such, this is certainly worth a look.

(Originally published at Medium.)

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