Streaming Pick – The Aeronauts
Your weekly streaming pick has arrived! The Aeronauts is an Amazon Original. The movie is an award season contender. It’s being widely applauded for it’s stunning visuals.
Pioneer meteorologist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) teams up with showman and pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones). Their mission is to fly higher than any humans in history. The accolades and prestige are what Wren’s after. Glaisher wants to study atmosphere and weather patterns. The unlikely duo each has their own personal demons to overcome which heightens their battle against the elements in the vast unknown. Even crazier, this potential record setting flight will all be done in a balloon with the most rudimentary of control.
A movie about a couple people floating in a balloon, admittedly, doesn’t sound all that interesting. Watching the human need for exploration and discovery despite severe limitations is the draw to the movie. Along with this universal interest is the on screen duo of Redmayne and Jones together again since their amazing performances in The Theory of Everything.
There is something special about these bottle movies. Movies where the bulk of the story takes place in a single location. In this case two great actors get to dig into their characters and performances in a 5×5 square, totally isolated from the rest of the world.
The script doesn’t go overboard in explanations. It lets the two characters, from different worlds, talk to each other enough to fill in the gaps for the audience without jumping head first into a pool of exposition.
The real history around the events are altered slightly. Narrative reasons, drama, marketability are all considerations and strict facts are made flexible. It didn’t really matter with the core story. It could have been an entire work of fiction but both characters are charismatic and likable. The depth they are given through glimpses and flashbacks will hold your interest inbetween the gorgeous cinematography.
Speaking of the gorgeous cinematography that is the #1 reason to watch this movie. No offense meant to the writers or actors but Amazon Studios delivers a gorgeous movie filled with ‘how did they pull that off’ shots, even in our digital age. The shooting is flawless. The visuals are so believable you are never sucked out of the movie. Further more, in our age of never ending ways to absorb content giving this movie the respect of watching it on a screen bigger than a phone or tablet will really suck you in.
The Aeronauts is something wholly refreshing and very well made. I’d go as far to say it’s better than it really has any right to be. The cast and crew came together to make something wholly greater than its individual parts.
