Score: 2.5 / 5
In his first directorial outing since Love, Simon, Greg Berlanti brings his considerable efforts to a period rom-com set in the '60s space race. Notably not queer, this material is an odd fit for Berlanti for other reasons: the Arrowverse and Broken Hearts Club mastermind hasn't handled anything this specific or detached from the millennium in many long years. The unwieldy material here vacillates from frothy, silly romance to surprisingly satirical political and historical commentary, and Berlanti is in way over his head. Perhaps it's primarily due to an unfocused screenplay, but evidence lies elsewhere: namely, the lack of chemistry between the two leads undermines the entire point of the film (as marketed). That's on Berlanti.
An accomplished pilot who wanted to be an astronaut himself, NASA launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) can't pull himself out of his own past. The tragedy of Apollo 1 haunts him daily, even as he prepares for what is now Apollo 11. Putting American men on the moon is his goal, and he suffers no fools to distract him. Enter Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), the immaculately festooned advertising exec selected by a mysterious government agent (a delightfully rakish Woody Harrelson) to sell the moon landing to the American populace. Despite repeated comments on her beauty, Johansson knows her character is a shark among the scientists and engineers: Jones is really good at her job, probably due to her chameleonic ability to lie and manipulate others, constantly using verbal smoke and mirrors to disguise her machinations.
Naturally, the two aren't going to work well, and the film's plot hinges on that. After a meet cute, she sets her sights on charming him while he actively erects walls to hinder her advances. Their banter feels straight out of old Hollywood, to the point that I half expected Doris Day or Cary Grant to pop onscreen. the difference is that Johansson at least appears to be having fun; Tatum is perhaps needfully stoic and dour, but he sticks out like a sore thumb, unable to muster his usual inner charm. It doesn't help that he's made up to look somewhat plastic, and his costumes do nothing to highlight his physique or confidence. One wonders what another casting choice might have done to boost this aspect of the story, which was maybe unfairly marketed as its primary conceit.
The film does, however, work remarkably well when Jones's last-ditch Plan B kicks into gear. Her assignment is to hire a film crew to fake the moon landing footage. It's couched in a believable, high-stakes concern that something could go terribly wrong, and we certainly don't want the general public to see that live on television. It's a familiar idea to anyone who's heard the conspiracy theories about Kubrick's similar involvement in real life, and the film has a lot of fun dramatizing this effort in thickly fictionalized manner. Jim Rash graces the film with intoxicating panache as the ostentatiously flamboyant director working with Jones to realize this scheme. He's in it for a chance to test his artistry; she's in it on government mandate, and has to keep the operation secret from Davis.
Rash might be the only person in this film who really understood and leaned into what the movie could have been, aggressively chewing the scenery and prancing around in bespoke suits with outrageous patterns and color. Johansson is solid, and Harrelson's final scene makes up for his wonky, scattered appearances, but the rest of the cast and crew don't seem to know what this material should be or how best to execute it. The longer the film continues, the more heavy-handed its dialogue, devolving into groan-inducing exposition dumps between main characters as the comedy flips to forced romance and contrived stakes. Logical steps aren't taken for granted, and instead of letting the audience catch up organically, the film constantly reminds us of motives and rationales that should be obvious and frankly aren't necessary anyway. Let the astronauts fly, let the filmmakers create, and let the lovers work (or not), but don't concurrently commentate.
Gorgeous production design and occasionally inspired cinematography make the film eminently watchable, and anyone interested in the period or the space race itself will find plenty here to enjoy. But a historical treatise -- even a farce -- about the faked moon footage this most certainly is not, nor is it a satisfying comedy, romance, or combination of the two. Specificity would have won the day here, methinks, to make this material rise above mediocrity and mean something to audiences in 2024.
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