The Aeronauts

Rated PG-13, Amazon Studios

Release Date: December 6th theatrical / December 20th Amazon Prime Video

Directed By: Tom Harper

Written By: Tom Harper and Jack Thorne

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Tom Courtenay, Anne Reid, Rebecca Front, Vincent Perez, Tim McInnery, Phoebe Fox, and Himesh Patel

Synopsis: Set in 1862, THE AERONAUTS follows wealthy young widow Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) and ambitious scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) as they mount a balloon expedition to fly higher than anyone in history. This is a journey to the very edge of existence, where the air is thin and the chances of survival are slim. As their perilous ascent reveals their true selves, this unlikely pair discover things about each other – and themselves – that help them find their place in the world they have left behind.

Not a biopic, not a documentary, but a fanciful combination of several actual flights made by James Glaisher and Henry Coxwell in a coal gas-powered balloon in the 1800s. In The Aeronauts, Coxwell is replaced by the fictional Amelia Wren, who is an amalgam of Coxwell, female balloonist Sophie Blanchard (who became a balloonist following the death of her husband, and who was decades dead at the time of the flight depicted here), and Margaret Graham, a British aeronaut and entertainer and contemporary of Glaisher and Coxwell.

Glaisher, a scientist and budding Meteorologist, in an attempt to convince his peers that weather can, in fact, be predicted, strove to find a balloon pilot—an Aeronaut—to take him aloft, thousands of feet, so he can take measurements of temperature, humidity, and the like, in order to more fully understand the atmosphere.

He finds Wren (whose name seems to be an Anglicanized form of her late husband’s French surname: Rennes), a popular Aeronaut, and convinces her to take him up, though she has barely (if at all) recovered from her husband’s death.

As the balloon ascends, the temperatures drop, the oxygen thins out, and we are treated to flashbacks of each of these two adventurers as they struggle to survive both the elements and their pasts.

The Aeronauts tries to make this scientific effort an adventure, and it mostly succeeds, but the film relies a little too heavily on the chemistry between Redmayne and Jones, while relegating the actual science to little more than a background prop, mostly unexplained, as the two grow closer the farther they travel from the world below.

In the end, The Aeronauts, though “inspired by true events,” is little more than a flight of fancy cooked up by Hollywood. Enjoyable enough, but as short-lived as the snowflakes Glaisher and Wren gather in jars as they descend back to Earth.

My rating: 6/10