SYNOPSIS: During the 1960s Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, a relationship develops between the NASA lunch director and a New York advertising executive brought in to make sure every American knew what NASA was all about. “When I’m done,” says advertising exec Kelly Jones of the Apollo 11 astronauts, “these men are going to be bigger than the Beatles.”
CAST: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Jim Rash, Anna Garcia, Donald Elise Watkins, Noah Robbins, Colin Woodell, Christian Zuber, Nick Dillenburg, Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson. Directed by Greg Berlanti.
REVIEW: Space Age rom com “Fly Me to the Moon” reaches for the stars, but never quite gets there. Charming a-listers Johansson and Tatum play fictional characters, a fast talking advertising executive—“The Killer From Manhattan,” they call her—and a tightly wound NASA launch director. As per the rom com formula, they meet cute, have an immediate attraction, and then spend much of the remainder of the movie’s over-long 2-hour and 12-minute runtime falling in and out of lust.
As if that wasn’t enough, their flirtation takes place against a backdrop of one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs—and one of the biggest conspiracy theories—of the Twentieth Century.
It’s an odd mix, and one that only works sporadically. When director Greg Berlanti allows Johansson and Tatum to parry, the movie works.
Johansson’s Kelly is a compulsive liar, someone who doesn’t mind bending the rules to get what she wants—for instance, she hires actors to do news interviews for press shy NASA engineers—and when she is in full flight, the character is wicked and fun. “We’re not lying to customers,” she says slyly, “we’re changing the way they think.”
Tatum has less to do, but is a solid leading man who can play it straight or bring a laugh when necessary. It’s not rocket science, but he pulls it off.
It’s when the movie shifts toward the moon launch story that it begins to fizzle like a wet firecracker. The move away from romance toward the supposedly tense July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 lift-off adds little to the movie except an extra half-hour.
Despite fun 1960s period piece details and charming leads, “Fly Me to the Moon” gets lost on lift-off.
“I’m not the person to write a romcom,” says Billy Eichner as the acerbic Bobby in “Bros,” the first major studio LGBTQ+ rom-com to play exclusively in theatres.
It’s a meta line in a movie that is both subversive and cliched. Star, co-writer and producer Eichner has melded frank sexuality with rom con conventions to create a funny, sincere movie that kicks the celluloid closet door wide open.
Eichner, the former host of the guerilla-style talk show “Billy on the Street,” plays Bobby, a gay, commitment-adverse podcaster. “I’m like whatever happened to Evan Hanson,” he says.
For Bobby random and anonymous Grindr hook-ups are a way of life until he spots handsome Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) in a club. At first, they appear to be polar opposites. “I don’t think he’s my type,” says Bobby. “He’s like a gay Tom Brady.”
But soon their mutual fear of commitment brings is the glue that bonds them. “Maybe we can be emotionally unavailable together,” Bobby says.
The confirmed bachelor who meets his partner is a standard rom com set-up. “My whole life, I prided myself on being self-reliant,” says Bobby, “but this *bleeper* has gotten into my head.”
But this story about the difficulty of dating is given a facelift by a meta joke about writing a gay rom com and the addition of steroids, thruples, a hat shaped like the Stonewall Inn and extensive use of Grindr.
Eichner layers this story of self-acceptance and love-at-first-sight with laugh-out-loud jokes, an unexpectedly caustic cameo from Debra Messing and heartfelt observational humor. It embraces the innate vulnerability and complexity of Aaron and Bobby’s exploration of masculinity and queerness without forgetting the funny.
But just as it makes you laugh, Eichner subverts the form with some more introspective moments. As a gay man with aspirations to chronicle his community, Bobby has a long, earnest monologue about waiting for the world to catch up with him.
“Bros” is a queer rom com; a subversive, new, crowd-pleasing take on a Hollywood staple.
