- Director: Greg Berlanti
- Screenplay: Rose Gilroy
- Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Jim Rash, Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson
- Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
- Editing: Harry Jierjian
- Score: Daniel Pemberton
- Genre: Romantic comedy-drama
- Runtime: 132 minutes
1969 – the year man first set foot on the moon. It nearly wasn’t though. Greg Berlanti (the heartwarming ‘Love, Simon’) brings us this charming rom-com set during the famous cold war era ‘space race’ between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum are our stars, giving us out of this world chemistry as a NASA director in command of the Apollo 11 project (Tatum) and a marketing specialist (Johansson) brought in to give the moon mission a positive PR slant and muster hope in the eyes of a nation whose men are overseas, being continually slaughtered in the Vietnam War. Other recent historical events putting a damper on the US include the assassination of Bobby Kennedy the previous year and the disastrous Apollo 1 launch – touched on movingly in the movie several times.
Johansson’s character’s efforts to commercialise the upcoming lunar journey are initially met with resistance from Tatum but the couple eventually gravitate towards each other. It’s a little daft at times, especially when Johansson is tasked with staging a faux moon landing as a backup in case the real Apollo 13 mission goes wrong. I mean, if you believe the astronauts actually landed on the moon in the first place. But I won’t stray into that territory here…
The typical rom-com template (guy meets girl, they fall out, they kiss and make up etc.) is elevated by the period costume design, 60s set dressing and lovely shots of the colossal NASA building at the Kennedy Space Center and, appropriately, the moonlit sky.
Blast off to your local cinema to see this as soon as you can!
My rating: 8 / 10
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