The idea of pairing Hollywood’s most beloved stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in a romantic comedy seems so obvious that you might wonder why it didn’t happen before this year and Fly Me to the Moon (Take me to the moon). Both exude a very physical, very sensual magnetism, which makes them a very appealing silver screen couple. In this charming but long-winded entertainment, the two stars engage in a bickering courtship against the backdrop of the space race and a fake moon landing, circa 1969.
Scarlett Johansson stars as Kelly Jones, a marketing specialist who can sell anything to anyone: lies, manipulation and deception are her main tools. But beneath her impeccable exterior and unwavering confidence, Kelly hides a troubled past.
Which past catches up with her when Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson, cheerfully cryptic), who works for a government agency so secret that even President Nixon doesn’t know everything that goes on there, mandates her to popularize NASA’s space program. It should be noted that from around 1967, even with the patriotic desire for the United States to send an astronaut to the Moon before the Soviet Union, the space race no longer aroused much interest: during its opening credits, the film sums up the sociopolitical context well.
In short, it is with a space program in need of love, and especially of funds, that Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) is grappling when we meet him. A former war pilot in charge of the Apollo program, Cole has his mission and his team tattooed on his heart. Of irreproachable honesty and probity, Cole is obviously the antithesis of Kelly.
And, of course, this is the perfect recipe for generating sparks – of annoyance and desire – between these two outrageously charismatic singles.
Sweet Scarlett Johansson
Rose Gilroy’s clever screenplay, written from a story imagined by Bill Kirstein and Keenan Flynn, contrasts the small and the immense. In that the love story remains intimate, but the backdrop is gigantic. Built on the principle of waiting, the romance in the making consists of a series of missed (love) dates, events and setbacks constantly delaying the rapprochements.
As an aside, Rose Gilroy comes from an illustrious film dynasty: her grandfather, Frank D. Gilroy, was a playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker (The Subject Was Roses ; Desperate Characters); his father, Dan Gilroy, is a screenwriter, director and producer (Nightcrawler/The Prowler); his uncles Tony Gilroy and John Gilroy are respectively screenwriter-director-producer (Michael Clayton) and editor (Pacific Rim/Pacific Shores); his mother, Rene Russo, is an actress (Get Shorty/This is the little one we need ; The Thomas Crown Affair/The Thomas Crown Affair).
Rose Gilroy having, if one can say so, in her blood, her dialogues turn out to be unsurprisingly quite witty, especially when delivered by Scarlett Johansson, very fit. The actress also has the opportunity to multiply the accents, which she knows how to make comical. With her rapid delivery which sometimes summons the memory of the comedies of the 1930s-1940s of Katharine Hepburn, the star of Black Widow and of Marriage Story is smooth from start to finish.
So is Channing Tatum, albeit in a score that would have benefited from being more fleshed out. His gaze alone, often, is enough to express Cole’s dilemma, who is both irresistibly drawn to Kelly and completely repelled by what she represents.
The two stars, however, are upstaged by Jim Rash (Bros/Friends), hilarious as a diva director hired by Kelly to film a fake moon landing: a plan B in the event of a failure of Apollo 11 (the satire of one of the most famous conspiracy theories is delicious).
Retro charm
The biggest drawback is the pace, which is at times more languid than slow: the more than two hours and ten minutes are excessive for a plot that would have sparkled more if the duration had been reduced to one hour and forty or one hour and fifty minutes.
The film, on the other hand, enjoys a neat production, with a retro charm. However, we avoid the trap of nostalgic fantasy, conducive to exaggeration and caricature: this is true of the very accurate visual design of Shane Valentino (The Trial of the Chicago 7/The Chicago 7), it is also the expert photography of Dariusz Wolski (The Martian/The Martian ; Napoleon).
Directed by Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon/With love, Simon) plays on coherence and also accentuates the contrast between intimacy and gigantism on which the proposal is based. Overall, its staging is effective, but not very imaginative. Although in truth, if we get on board, it is first and foremost to fly away with Scarlett and Channing.