Fly Me To The Moon Review: A Film That Reminds Us Why We Love Cinema

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum

Directed By: Greg Berlanti

Where to Watch: In Theaters

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)

Fly Me To The Moon: a romantic comedy in theaters from July 11, the film with Scarlett Johansson reflects reality and fiction. Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star in the new romantic comedy from Apple Original Films, coming out this Thursday in theaters with Sony Pictures distributing. However, Fly Me To The Moon is set at a precise moment in American history, during the space race in the late 1960s. This is also a return behind the camera for Greg Berlanti, screenwriter, and producer of successful series such as Riverdale or The Flight Attendant, to name the most recent, who tries again as director after the excellent transposition of the Young Adult novel Love, Simon.

Ask who Stanley Kubrick was. For those who love cinema, the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey, probably the greatest of all time, needs no introduction. Perhaps, however, that urban legend – today we would call it fake news – that has been circulating for about fifty years, according to which the 1969 moon landing never happened, but was a film shot in a studio, and by none other than Stanley Kubrick. Who, just a little earlier, had shot his 2001 by asking NASA to make his film more realistic. What we are telling you in the review of Fly Me To The Moon, the film by Greg Berlanti in theaters from July 11, is not the story of the moon landing filmed by Kubrick, even if a couple of times he mentions the English filmmaker. It is, however, a story, very intelligent, that speaks to us of fiction and reality: of marketing and advertising, of television, of cinema. It is one of those films that we like because, between a sparkling script and actors in part, it mixes sociological analysis, a satire of customs, and the best romantic comedy. And it reminds us why we love cinema so much.

Fly Me To The Moon Review: The Story Plot

It is 1969 and America, trying to forget the bloodbath of Vietnam, is engaged in the race to the Moon. A race that sees it behind its Soviet rivals, but on which the United States is gambling not only its international prestige and image as a great power leading the world but also the stability of the nation, threatened by increasingly powerful waves of protest. The challenge is to send the first man to the moon by the end of the 1960s, a time that, at the beginning of 1969, is now running out. Not only that: the country, increasingly depressed and shocked by the carnage of the war in Asia, by the pacifist revolts, by those for rights, by the high-profile murders, has now lost interest in the space program which, to be successful, needs instead to attract the attention of the masses and, consequently, that of the sponsors.

So, while NASA engineers and astronauts work hard on the enterprise, Kelly Jones, an enterprising publicist and star of Madison Avenue is recruited by a mysterious agent who works on behalf of President Nixon and swoops down on Florida ready to remake the image of the lunar project. She will succeed, of course, but in Florida she will run into, then clash with, and finally fall in love with the director of the launch, still tormented by the tragedy of the first failed launch. In the meantime, however, the mysterious agent will return to the charge, revealing the real, incredible reason why Kelly was recruited: a perfect and flawless staging of the moon landing to be broadcast on TVs all over the world to protect themselves from any possible unforeseen event or failure and to make America look good, no matter what happens.

Fly Me To The Moon Review and Analysis

Have We Really Been to the Moon? Yes, no, maybe, who cares? This is not another Capricorn One, a charming and fascinating political science fiction film by the late Peter Hyams who in 1977 hypothesized a different scenario concerning the conquest of the natural satellite. Even in Fly Me To The Moon we are somewhere near the novel but no drama, this is (only) a nice and funny comedy. Purchased at auction for 100 million dollars by Apple Original Films, the work, initially intended only for streaming, was not conceived to support the hypotheses of the so-called conspiracy theorists and skeptics who doubt that the Moon has ever been reached. Directed with good hand by producer Greg Berlanti here at his fifth work as a director, the Apollo 11 mission is told through a light narration. Amazing work by Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (Napoleon, The Martian among many others) and Production Designer Shane Valentino (Nocturnal Animals) in recreating the atmosphere and colors of the 60s.

It is easy to quickly empathize with the main characters played by Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson, the latter also co-producer for an even more tailor-made film. A screwball comedy that literally lives on the sparkling relationship between Cole and Kelly, friends-enemies determined to pursue their goal at all costs even if from different angles, both on the road to personal redemption. The cunning, the fervent imagination, and a stylish feminine touch are in constant contrast with the pragmatism of a failed astronaut who feels the weight of the world on him. The “third wheel” is represented by the enigmatic Moe, who comes to life thanks to a sensational Woody Harrelson, the dark side of the US government for which failure is not a viable option. The screenplay by newcomers Keenan Flynn, Rose Gilroy, and Bill Kirstein includes the hypothesis of “Plan B”, in which it was necessary to be ready to stage the moon landing in case something went wrong.

However, everything is reinterpreted through a successful ironic atmosphere: the irritable advertising director in charge of making the moon landing real and the side dish of bad luck served by the unpredictable black cat, ready to annihilate any superstitious ritual, stand out. The historical reinterpretation is largely fictionalized and adapted to the brilliant tone of the narration, a mirror of the American society of the time, mocking any more or less well-founded conspiracy while waving the flag of resilience and perseverance Made in USA. Paying homage to the (more stupid) detractors with the statement “We should have called Kubrick” in response to the director’s prima donna tantrums, the script does not fail to provoke some good reflections. It is always Kelly who, speaking to Cole, underlines that “the truth is always the truth even if no one believes it, a lie is always a lie, even if everyone believes it”. Because we have really been on the Moon: yes, no, maybe, who cares.

Greg Berlanti’s film may not be perfect, but how can we not be moved, even today, when we see Apollo 11 take off and, later, see the actor who plays Neil Armstrong touched down on the moon? No, you can’t. That’s the first thing we appreciated about the film, which takes us back to a moment that held the entire humanity in suspense and, as Channing Tatum’s character says, changed the history books forever. In addition to this, Fly Me To The Moon is a lively and fun film. Much of it rests on Scarlett Johansson and her unstoppable Kelly Jones, who can think of anything and do anything, despite the less than warm welcome from the head of the Apollo 11 program, a measured Channing Tatum. After all, Kelly embodies the soul of commerce: marketing, communication, advertising, or, as we say today, storytelling, which is nothing more than a sweet deception, and who better than a shrewd con artist can make her way in such a career?

Like any self-respecting romantic comedy, love will make every mask fall, but the point is that of Fly Me To The Moon, the viewer will remember much more than a love story that always remains in the background, the context, the 60s still enclosed in a beautiful glossy package (although historically now out of date), the story of the “behind the scenes” of the astronauts of thousands of other people working for the enterprise, and the incredible staging engineered by the “strong powers” to be sure that America would emerge victorious and at the helm of good, like in the films of old Hollywood, where the bad guys are always the Indians. A staging, imagined in the film, but which is still one of the warhorses of conspiracy theorists around the world. Honorable mention for Woody Harrelson, dark, threatening but also truly hilarious.

Talking about reality and fiction means talking about marketing, about advertising. “We don’t have to send these things into space, but just say it.” “Do we have to lie?” “No, we have to sell.” It’s a dialogue between Kelly and a member of NASA. Kelly Jones, a skilled advertiser, is at the same time a saleswoman and an actress. She knows what each interlocutor wants to hear and brings them exactly those words, that tone of voice, that state of mind. Advertising is not real fiction, but rather an adaptation of reality. It’s not about lying, but about embellishing, about giving the person you want to reach, your target, what they want. It means putting yourself on the same level as them. Do you remember Toni Servillo’s Silvio Berlusconi the salesman in Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro and the phone call to the housewife? And do you also remember Don Draper in Mad Men? Kelly is a bit of all of them. And, by the way, Fly Me To The Moon will really please those who loved the atmosphere of Mad Men.

Reality and fiction are also television. And here the relationship is different. Television, at least that’s what is believed, when it is live or documentary, does not embellish reality, does not reinterpret it, but reproduces it as it is. This is not really the case, because everything, when it passes through a “medium”, is necessarily mediated. But television has long had this task: that of certifying and establishing something that has happened. It is said that something does not happen if it does not appear on TV. It is not true, of course, but at the level of collective consciousness, it is so. The great thing about the moon landing, beyond obviously the fact that it happened, is that millions of people saw it live on TV. Only in this way did it reach everyone, and for everyone it was truly real. In a passage of the film, there is precisely this. The idea of ​​bringing a camera onto the moon landing module, at the cost of having to recalculate the weights and measures of the entire system, is traced back to our Kelly.

If we think that television images are those that document reality, it is a paradox that images themselves – television or cinematographic, because here the boundary is blurred – can also be those that, reconstructed or manipulated, can mystify reality. In Fly Me To The Moon, when it is thought that the moon landing is at risk, it is decided to film an alternative in the studio. And here we move on to another step in the relationship between reality and fiction: cinema. Yes, our love. Once the leaders of the United States decide that the moon landing will be reconstructed, and filmed from scratch, they turn to cinema. The Seventh Art is the theater of dreams, it is life as we would like it, and it is the place where every wish can come true. The place where we can ask for the moon. Cinema makes us fly; it makes us dream. At the cinema everything is possible. This is why we love it so much. And this is why Fly Me To The Moon is all these things: a film about reality and fiction, about advertising, about the power of television. But above all, it is a great film about cinema. Even if, at a certain point, our Kelly exclaims “We should have called Kubrick!”.

Greg Berlanti’s Fly Me To The Moon certainly has all the hallmarks of a “true story” dramatization, where you can choose which version you want to believe. Some still think the moon landings were faked, but even though the film is loosely based on real-life events, it takes a lot of creative liberties. But the director, who has always had a knack for balancing comedy with romance, brings to the big screen a fun romcom about a couple who spark from their first meeting, in a typical American diner. Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum are very good and the chemistry between their characters also works aesthetically speaking. The actress recently seen also in Asteroid City, seems the typical effortless beauty of the Sixties and the American actor finally does not undress and plays a role perfect for him, that of a soldier with good principles who has always served his country. To conclude, Fly Me To The Moon has all the qualities to become one of the most popular romantic films of this summer made of a lot of nostalgia for the fabulous Sixties and big laughs throughout its duration.

Fly Me To The Moon Review: The Last Words

The film is indeed uneven also because it puts a lot of meat on the fire that does not always cook perfectly, but it will certainly entertain and intrigue the audience by taking it back to that special moment, for all humanity, 55 years ago. The Apollo 11 moon landing mission has been dubbed “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” Perhaps Fly Me To The Moon is a small step to bring more romantic comedies to the cinema starring famous actors who know how to do their job: acting. In the review of Fly Me To The Moon we talked about a film that we like because, between a sparkling script and actors in part, it mixes sociological analysis, satire of customs, and the best romantic comedy. And it reminds us why we love cinema so much.