Review: ‘Fly Me to the Moon’

Florida, known as the Sunshine State, is the sunny backdrop for the latest Hollywood blockbuster, “Fly Me to the Moon,” starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, which opened this month.

The fictional story takes us to 1969, to a visually saturated world, full of colorful shift dresses and tailored trousers, where an introverted NASA director — Tatum’s character Cole — who is in charge of the Apollo 11 launch, collides with the feisty, fast-talking and faster-thinking Kelly, a ruthless marketing specialist played by Johansson. They are instructed by the US president to broadcast the moon landing. And the space race begins.

Cole, a military veteran who fought in the Korean War, moves through the world cautiously. He worries about his engineers and is violently opposed when Kelly tells him she will install a camera on the shuttle — but she eventually gets her way.

He hates chaos or potentially putting lives in danger, mainly astronauts Buzz Aldrin and his team. She sees the bigger picture: People only care about optics. She will give the president, and the American people, what they want. She is willing to risk it all for the mission.

Kelly, who believes that no rules ever apply to her and subscribes to the “act now, think later” philosophy, takes matters into her well-manicured hands. While Cole does the same, he follows the rules in his own rugged way.

Cole and Kelly are on separate missions — each to land on the moon. With him, the real deal. With her, a landing crafted out of thin air, using actors and constructing an authentic-looking set.

Together, they unknowingly embark on the most ambitious launch yet: selling American excellence to Americans, and the world. They do this all while maintaining their own sensibilities.

Of course, they fall in love. But will it last, or will they get in each other’s way — or their own way?

The live broadcast happens, televised for all of America to see, but which feed will be the one that makes it to the public? The real one, which now includes a real camera, or the one she crafted in a studio? Amazingly, a cat named Mischief makes the call.

Sometimes, facts can be stranger than fiction, but will reality prevail or merely the fabricated version of it?

The film also stars Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano as well the excellent Jim Rash and Anne Garcia. It was directed by Greg Berlanti with Johansson serving as a producer, along with Jonathan Lia, Keenan Flynn and Sarah Schechter as co-producers.

The film is as relevant as ever in 2024, as social media allows us to each be in charge of our own carefully curated stories that sometimes stand in contrast to our lives behind the scenes.

Of course, the classic jazz song, “Fly Me to the Moon,” makes a cameo. Written in 1954 by Bart Howard, who crafted it for his partner of 58 years, it was eventually rewritten with the Apollo missions to the moon in mind.

Famously performed by Frank Sinatra in 1964, that version is the one that stood the test of time. But that too was a remake — the original version of that re-write was by Kaye Ballard.

Like the film, we sometimes get to decide which version of history we would like to keep.