Chemistry has all the time been Hollywood’s secret sauce, and, for romcoms a minimum of, the excessive watermark stays the pairing of Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Most cineastes can title their first collaboration (Pillow Speak in 1959), however the others — Lover Come Again (1961) and Ship Me No Flowers (1964) — don’t come to thoughts so rapidly. As a model, although, these two have greater than endured in popular culture, and writers and administrators have needed to work more durable and more durable to discover a approach to recapture that magic, since we now know very properly that it requires a terrific deal extra than simply placing a few handsome well-known folks collectively.
Peyton Reed got here shut in 2003’s together with his trendy, early-’60s interval pastiche Down with Love, casting Renee Zellweger alongside Ewan McGregor, and Olivia Wilde definitely did not with 2022’s Don’t Fear Darling, lumbering Florence Pugh with Harry Kinds in a risible ’50s-themed sci-fi. Fly Me to the Moon, nonetheless, could be the very best problem lately mounted, even when a lot religion is positioned within the central casting of Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum that, other than an enjoyably offbeat cameo by Woody Harrelson, there are just about no substantial supporting roles. Like, any. At all.
From the outset, Greg Berlanti’s movie roots itself in the true world of the ’60s house race, utilizing archive footage to position the place the USA was on the finish of the last decade. In 1961, the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin turned the primary man up there, sparking an instantaneous bidding struggle with the US for proprietorship of the moon. Because the years wore on, nonetheless, this once-exciting however vastly costly competitors misplaced its sheen with the general public, initially after the surprising assassination of JFK in 1963 however particularly as soon as the Vietnam struggle took maintain quickly after — PR points that have been skirted by Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 however not Damien Chazelle’s First Man.
Public burnout with NASA is on the coronary heart of Fly Me to the Moon, which begins, unexpectedly, with a Mad Males-style intro that finds our heroine, Kelly Jones (Johansson) arriving to pitch to an promoting firm on Madison Avenue. “Fallacious room, we don’t want dictation,” they inform her, saying the quiet half out loud within the sexist spirit of the time. Kelly, nonetheless, carries on, together with her presentation — promoting sports activities vehicles to males, in a roomful of males — that’s so profitable, evidently she needn’t have bothered with the faux being pregnant bump that she is sporting as a form of backup plan to elicit sympathy.
Kelly is fairly good at this sort of factor, which is why, that night time in a bar, she meets a spook (Harrelson) who introduces himself as Moe Berkus. Berkus appears to know all about Kelly and brings up the provide of a high-powered job, which she balks at, claiming to not have the expertise. “Face like that,” says Berkus, “who’s gonna examine references? You’ve gotten a singular expertise — why waste it promoting vehicles?”
The product, he says, is the moon, because the authorities is determined to re-energize the house program and never solely win the propaganda struggle with the USSR however give the depressed American folks one thing to root for. Kelly is in nearly instantly, flying to Cocoa Seashore in Florida together with her not-so-enthusiastic assistant, an anti-Nixon peacenik. On her first night time, consuming solo at a close-by diner, Kelly meets Cole Davis (Tatum), a seasoned pilot who — very like one of many real-life characters from Tom Wolfe’s 1979 e book The Proper Stuff — has seen his personal ambitions to develop into an astronaut thwarted and now operates behind the scenes.
They flirt, fairly innocently, and Cole, after naively oversharing his attraction to her, is shocked when she turns up at his office the following day. Kelly is unfazed and units about her work like a lady possessed. Flipping the Hudson-Day playbook, Cole is the hustled and Kelly the hustler, which is the place the movie is at its strongest: Kelly needs to promote the hell out of the upcoming Apollo 11 launch — from wristwatches to underwear and breakfast cereal — however the uptight, nerdy Cole, who clearly wears a vest beneath his trendy, pastel-colored turtlenecks, needs to protect its integrity. Billy Wilder would have had numerous enjoyable with this set-up, and there’s somewhat little bit of his 1961 comedy One Two Three right here as Cole struggles with this whirlwind that’s now disrupting his ordered life.
Up thus far, there’s a geniality that drives every little thing ahead, an acknowledgment that it did take so much to win again the favor of American politicians, within the excessive warmth of 1969 particularly. However the blurring of truth and fiction quickly turns into a bit uncomfortable; the catastrophic destiny of Apollo 1 shouldn’t be terribly tactfully dealt with, and the movie performs into conspiracy idea territory when Berkus forces Kelly to make contingency plans if Apollo 11 fails (which includes filming a faux moon touchdown with out Cole realizing and many jokes about Stanley Kubrick being unavailable). This manner, explains Berkus, “All people will get what they need, and the world doesn’t must sleep beneath a Communist moon.”
However will everybody else get what they need? In its favor, Johannson and Tatum — in maybe their most weaponized comedic roles since Hail, Caesar! — actually do make a terrific group, which is the principle field ticked and can doubtless be the most important draw for audiences, particularly when it strikes from theaters onto Apple TV+. This dazzling partnership doesn’t go away an enduring impression, nonetheless. Because of its more and more wayward plotting and totally distracting manipulation of identified historical past within the pursuit of ever extra ridiculous laughs, Fly Me to the Moon winds up extra screwy than screwball, leaving the door large open, but once more, for the following crack at that old-school Hollywood chemistry factor.
