Fly Me to the Moon is a lovely period rom com. It’s interesting because the two stars have very little screen time together but it is more about their individual journeys and how they need to be more flexible with the other. Scarlet Johansson is female version of Don Draper, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who can put a spin on anything – including the moon landing. By hook or by crook she gets her story across, she’s a cutthroat character that of course gets found out at the end, but redeems herself. Channing Tatum meanwhile is the quiet reserved type, as averse to marketing spin as she is to telling the truth. The two have their meet cute in an Grease-like all-American diner, only exactly like the cult musical, the leads end up meeting later and are at loggerheads with conflicting objectives.
It’s a lovely, colourful period piece that transports you back to the heyday of superpower supremacy, creating a believable reality in how the moon landing could have (almost) been percieved the wrong way. But it’s an alternative reality in which the how the moon landing was. Woody Harrelson is so agreeable that even when he’s being serious there’s a mischievous glint in his eye and you know he won’t be acting like that for long.
Fly Me to the Moon lands in UK cinemas today.
FILM FOR THOUGHT 