“Space Oddity,” a new overstuffed feature directed by actor Kyra Sedgwick and now playing on VOD, flits around between space travel, trauma, the ecology, family dynamics and romance without ever settling on any one of them.
When we meet the McAllister family, Rhode Island flower farmers Jeff (Kevin Bacon) and Jane (Carrie Preston), daughter Liz (Madeline Brewer) and son Alex (Kyle Allen), they are dealing with great trauma. The death of their middle son has left the parents and sister lost, throwing themselves into work to cope with their loss.
Alex, however, has an out-of-this-world plan to escape his pain. He joins Mission to Mars, a private company—think Bezos and Musk—with plans to colonize Mars. It’s not a one-way trip either. Earth is dying, Alex says, so why hang around?
His family goes along with his pipe dream until he gets serious, and applies for insurance to help finance the journey. At the insurance office, however, he meets Daisy (Alexandra Shipp), a broker who just might give the rocket man a reason to come down to earth.
The subject of space travel is the method by which “Space Oddity” conveys its real message, about the state of our planet and what needs to be done to save our environment, but the addition of family drama and romance makes it feel like it is madly running off in several directions all at once.
It has the feel of an after school special. The lead, Alex, isn’t a teenager, but he behaves like one and Allen’s wishy-washy performance doesn’t do much to hold our interest at the center of the film. He isn’t aided by a script that telegraphs every plot twist in advance. If the film’s journey had been more interesting, the predictable destination wouldn’t be as bland.
“Space Oddity” simply bites off more than it can chew. The environmental messages are heavy-handed with no new ideas and, as a study of grief, it is far too light weight.
According to a new biopic Florence Foster Jenkins left the world with these words on her lips, “People may say I couldn’t sing but no one can say I didn’t sing.” Meryl Streep plays the eccentric New York City songbird as a woman with a passion for music but an ear of tin.
The delightful story of a society hostess with a song in her heart but no ability to translate that into something tuneful, is twenty five minutes into its running time before Jenkins (Streep) lets loose with her atonal caterwauling. She’s a wealthy woman who has devoted herself to the musical life of her city. She’s a patron of the arts, giving money to legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini and others, a founder of clubs, a fixture of mid-twentieth century New York life.
When she attends a Lily Pons (Aida Garifullina) recital the fire to sing is ignited. “Can you imagine what that must feel like,” she says, “to hold 3000 people in the cup of your hand?” With the help of her husband St Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) she hires pianist Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg) and Maestro Carlo Edwards, assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, to whip her into stage shape in exchange for handsome paydays. Trouble is her vocalizing sounds like two cats in heat fighting in an alleyway. So wrapped up in the music, she has no idea of the terrible sounds coming out of her mouth. “There is no one quite like you,” the Metropolitan maestro says delicately.
Her performances are both remarkable and delusional. “A few wrong notes can be forgiven,” says Bayfield, “but singing without passion cannot.” Her husband, who loves her but has a younger girlfriend (Rebecca Ferguson) living in his downtown apartment, carefully manages who comes to her vanity performances, ensuring the audiences is stacked with well wishers. When Florence books Carnegie Hall for a charity concert for US servicemen, Bayfield does everything he can to protect her from the “mockers and scoffers.” When tickets to the show sell out faster than for Sinatra—megastars Cole Porter and Tallulah Bankhead even show up—the show becomes Manhattan’s social event of the year but is it a display of vainglorious egotism or passion?
“Florence Foster Jenkins” is one of those true-to-life bios that seems to prove the cliché that fact is stranger than fiction. In real life Jenkins’s awful singing sold out concert halls and the records she made were the biggest sellers Melotone Recording Studios ever had and have become collector’s items. She is the center of the action, the reason we are here, and Streep plays her with gusto. Like Jenkins who won audiences over with her enthusiasm, Streep wins us over with her passion to present her character as a real person and not a caricature of a talentless hack unaware that she was being laughed at. Afflicted with syphilis contracted on her wedding night, she fought to stay alive for 50 years, taking each day as it comes, inspired by her love of music to go on. Streep, as usual, finds the real humanity of her character and brings that to life.
But for once, Streep is not the star of the show. In a movie filled to the brim with great performances from Streep, Nina Arianda as a Judy Holliday-type with a loud mouth and Ferguson as Bayfield’s second fiddle, it is Grant who shines the brightest.
His Bayfield is courtly but tough, a maître d’ for Jenkins’s life. He protects her from the harsh realities of life, making sure their “happy world” stays that way. It’s the kind of effortless performance that made him a star but it isn’t all surface charm and wit. Under his furrowed brow is a real love for Florence that extends beyond the perks of being married to one of the city’s richest women. He genuinely loves her and that comes across every time he glances in her direction. If it’s not a career best performance for Grant, it’s very close.
“Florence Foster Jenkins” is a story of devotion, passion and off key singing that, unlike its subject, hits all the right notes.
