‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Movie Review: Space Race Rom-Com Is A Delightful Surprise
Photo from Sony Pictures
From Jeremy Kibler
Mixing fictional history with a retro romantic-comedy is the mission in Fly Me to the Moon, and it all comes together seamlessly. It is, first and foremost, a slick, old-fashioned star vehicle being sold to you by the beauty and charisma of Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, who are in turn selling the moon. As long as one doesn’t get bent out of shape about a conspiracy theory being made into entertainment, Fly Me to the Moon makes for a sparkling, purely enjoyable yarn. It’s like Capricorn One but more delightful.
An effervescent, fast-talking Johansson plays Kelly Jones, a Manhattan advertising specialist, and the gosh-darn-charming Tatum plays Cole Davis, the NASA launch director overseeing the upcoming Apollo 11 launch in 1969. Per an important Richard Nixon deal with government agent Moe Berkus (a perfectly snaky Woody Harrelson), Kelly is hired to be a publicist for the space program. When Kelly comes in with a job to do, her position does not sit well with Cole. At first, Kelly is just building buzz through product deals and then hiring good-looking actors to play Cole, the astronauts, and even NASA engineer Henry Smalls (Ray Romano) for interviews. Next up, Kelly has to take her duplicity one step further and fake a back-up moon landing on a soundstage just in case the real one doesn’t work out. Will the truth win out?
Director Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon), working from a witty script by Rose Gilroy, has disparate tones to juggle and pulls it all off with aplomb. It’s light on its feet but never insubstantial to hold zero weight, and when the drama heightens, it all feels earned and even moving. In both tone and look, the film is never as arch or spoofy as 2003’s cleverly frisky 1960s pastiche Down with Love. Shooting with a bright attention to costume and production design but not being heavy-handed about it, Berlanti finds a happy medium between aw-shucks homage, nostalgia, and period accuracy.
Individually and together, Johansson and Tatum are sharp and playful. Besides both being gorgeous, they have a snappy, crackling screwball-style banter and share a true connection on screen that’s lovely to watch. Of the two, Johansson is particularly exuberant with her ace comic timing as the shrewd Kelly (or is that her real name?). The thing about major movie stars playing period roles is that there’s usually an air of artifice; we never forget we’re watching actors play dress-up. There’s still a little bit of that here, but Cole and Kelly are not hollow creations. The script gives them each enough characterization (he harbors a lot of guilt from a botched mission and she was born a con artist), as if they have lives before and after the story we’re watching.
The supporting cast may be a little more underwritten, but everyone is selling it, including Romano, who makes the most of his screen time, and a peppy Anna Garcia as Kelly’s card-carrying feminist associate Ruby. Jim Rash, however, threatens to run off with the entire movie; as the diva director behind the fake moon landing, Rash is hilarious with every gesture and every line of dialogue. Also, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for movie cats; the one here is actually good luck.
Breezy but never low-stakes, Fly Me to the Moon makes the art of starry, historically inaccurate entertainments look easy. So far, it’s one of the year’s surprise sleepers.
Rating: 4/5
Fly Me to the Moon hits theaters July 12, 2024.
