The Aeronauts (Tom Harper, 2019): UK, USA

Reviewed by Gabriel Gottardi. Viewed at 2019 AFI festival.

Definitely one of the beautiful movie that I have ever seen. The aeronauts is the kind of movie you can’t see at your tv, phone or iPad, you have to go to the theater to contemplate its majesty. I have the incredible change to watch in IMAX, which completely changed my perspective of how well made the movie is. Just like Peaky Blinder, Tom Harper didn’t fail with the unbelievable scenario and story. A movie that at least should be nominated.

Based on a true story, The Aeronauts is more than a movie. It shows the accomplishment of the humanity, throughout our history. In 1862, pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) teams up with daredevil balloon pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) to advance human knowledge of the weather and fly at 37.000 ft in a ballon – higher than anyone in history. During the journey, they face emotional and physicals that challenged the success of the mission. It’s unclear why Tom Harper and the screenwriter Jack Thorne chose to tamper with such a core element of history. The feat was accomplishment by two men – Is it less interested? I believed that the presence of a woman makes the movie more interest, since it goes against what our society has lived over the years.

The film relies heavily on visuals. Once the pair reaches significant altitude, we get several majestic wide shots. The Aeronauts similar with “Gravity” have a realist look of the surroundings, however, I believe is not as majestic as director Alfonso Cuaron was able to pull-off. Throughout the cinematography, the movie loses air when it reaches for melodramatic clichés, making the audience tedious. On the other hand, does an incredible job with the flashbacks that better introduce the characters to the viewers.

One aspect that surprised my was the the physical and intellectual equality between the parties, that contradict the historical Hollywood trend. Jones shows an empowering human who is free to make her own decision, event if the society at that time didn’t let her. Also, a person that can sacrifice her own life to complete the mission. On the other hand, Redmayne explores the life of a scientist seeking to change the world. I believe that just like The Theory Of Everything, Redmayne made an incredible job showing the we should chase our dreams and always push our limits to achieve big things.

In my opinion, the story fails to delivery the romance between the two leads, which made everyone believe about their “chemistry”, but in the end doesn’t resolve to a predictable case of romance.