*My review of The Aeronauts was originally published on Film Inquiry. Click here to read the original post and check out more great reviews from this awesome site!*
The Aeronauts is a very bizarre movie, but I don’t necessarily mean “bizarre” in the traditional sense of the word. Though its concept is far from uninteresting, director Tom Harper‘s film is fundamentally split between the trappings of a traditional period drama and a very particular kind of overtly cinematic spectacle, a balance that, difficult as it may be, is not entirely impossible to pull off. Yet nothing in the structure of The Aeronauts is conducive to its competing stories, as its ineffective flashback style stitches together two vastly different narratives without ever achieving a fluid whole. The result is a visually impressive film without much in the way of tension or intrigue, one that lands its most basic punches while never rising above the cliches of its generic modes. A film that strains to be remarkable ends up feeling utterly ordinary: that’s what’s so bizarre about it.
Eddie Redmayne stars as James Glaisher, a young scientist who believes that the weather is something to be studied and predicted; of course, this is now known as meteorology. Glaisher often professes the life-changing potential of meteorology to his dismissive colleagues at the local science club, where he has become something of a laughingstock. Unable to secure financing for his expeditions to measure the weather, James has little hope of turning theoretical science into cold, hard facts. His only support comes from trusted friend and adviser John Trew (Yesterday‘s Himesh Patel), but that isn’t getting him any closer to his dreams.
Enter Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones), one of the world’s most talented aeronauts and a natural at selling this kind of spectacle. After her husband’s death in a hot air balloon accident (she was a fellow passenger on-board), Amelia has struggled to return to the skies, due to both personal doubt and institutional sexism. With Glaisher actively encouraging Amelia to be his partner on this daring flight, she reluctantly decides to embark on this dangerous journey—to go where no human beings have gone before.
This, however, is not exactly how the film plays out. The Aeronauts opens with James and Amelia’s highly attended balloon launch, later rotating between an experiential approach to their perilous flight and flashbacks that recap how they got to this point. In theory, I understand this structure: for all intents and purposes, this is a family film, so it’s a bit challenging to relentlessly depict the intense horrors of this journey. Yet director Harper and screenwriter Jack Thorne never make any attempt to shy away from the grisly details of aeronautical travel (including frostbite, lack of oxygen, even temporary madness), which makes the structure that much more illogical. There’s no build-up to the original launch, and even when Harper eventually stages a setpiece that puts the audience on edge, the tension vanishes as soon as we jump back in time.
In the end, as sympathetic as Jones and Redmayne‘s characters may be, the film simply never overcomes this glaring flaw. Even with a handful of awe-inspiring moments, The Aeronauts is an inconsequential adventure, a journey too familiar, routine, and misguided to ever make much of an impact.
THE FINAL GRADE: C- (4.5/10)
Images courtesy of Amazon Studios
The Aeronauts is a very bizarre movie, but I don’t necessarily mean “bizarre” in the traditional sense of the word. Though its concept is far from uninteresting, director Tom Harper‘s film is fundamentally split between the trappings of a traditional period drama and a very particular kind of overtly cinematic spectacle, a balance that, difficult as it may be, is not entirely impossible to pull off. Yet nothing in the structure of The Aeronauts is conducive to its competing stories, as its ineffective flashback style stitches together two vastly different narratives without ever achieving a fluid whole. The result is a visually impressive film without much in the way of tension or intrigue, one that lands its most basic punches while never rising above the cliches of its generic modes. A film that strains to be remarkable ends up feeling utterly ordinary: that’s what’s so bizarre about it.
Eddie Redmayne stars as James Glaisher, a young scientist who believes that the weather is something to be studied and predicted; of course, this is now known as meteorology. Glaisher often professes the life-changing potential of meteorology to his dismissive colleagues at the local science club, where he has become something of a laughingstock. Unable to secure financing for his expeditions to measure the weather, James has little hope of turning theoretical science into cold, hard facts. His only support comes from trusted friend and adviser John Trew (Yesterday‘s Himesh Patel), but that isn’t getting him any closer to his dreams.
Enter Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones), one of the world’s most talented aeronauts and a natural at selling this kind of spectacle. After her husband’s death in a hot air balloon accident (she was a fellow passenger on-board), Amelia has struggled to return to the skies, due to both personal doubt and institutional sexism. With Glaisher actively encouraging Amelia to be his partner on this daring flight, she reluctantly decides to embark on this dangerous journey—to go where no human beings have gone before.
This, however, is not exactly how the film plays out. The Aeronauts opens with James and Amelia’s highly attended balloon launch, later rotating between an experiential approach to their perilous flight and flashbacks that recap how they got to this point. In theory, I understand this structure: for all intents and purposes, this is a family film, so it’s a bit challenging to relentlessly depict the intense horrors of this journey. Yet director Harper and screenwriter Jack Thorne never make any attempt to shy away from the grisly details of aeronautical travel (including frostbite, lack of oxygen, even temporary madness), which makes the structure that much more illogical. There’s no build-up to the original launch, and even when Harper eventually stages a setpiece that puts the audience on edge, the tension vanishes as soon as we jump back in time.
In the end, as sympathetic as Jones and Redmayne‘s characters may be, the film simply never overcomes this glaring flaw. Even with a handful of awe-inspiring moments, The Aeronauts is an inconsequential adventure, a journey too familiar, routine, and misguided to ever make much of an impact.
THE FINAL GRADE: C- (4.5/10)
Images courtesy of Amazon Studios
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