Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, Himesh Patel, Phoebe Fox, Anna Reid, Tim McInnerny, Vincent Perez, Robert Glenister, Tom Courtney, Rebecca Front, Kamil Lemieszewski, Gianni Calchetti, Lewin Lloyd, Julian Ferro, Thomas Arnold, Andy Mihalache.
If you are terrified of heights then then to be trapped in a hot air balloon is arguably the worst place you can imagine to be, or maybe as the one in control of its descent, on top of the structure trying to force it down by releasing the mechanism that will get you to ground safely.
For the early pioneers of balloon travel, the nerves may have been frayed but like any explorer it is the belief and the burning questions that makes it all worth-while; today we have nothing to explore of value it seems, only our own endurance and limit, but as we look down upon the Earth, we are gripped by the talons of that false knave, failure, the fear of falling from a height so vast that our remains will be forever embedded in the ground as a testament to folly and recklessness.
To touch the heavens though, to soar through the sky and withstand the thunder of disapproval, to come back down to Earth with the knowledge that you saw through each layer that surrounds us, that was once the dream of the pioneers, those who showed the way and as the beautifully crafted and cinematically shot film The Aeronauts provides. To hear the silence of the world, to see below and not see borders and division, if that is not worth the fear of falling in any pursuit, then how else do you feel alive.
The Aeronauts reunites Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne, still basking in the glory of the success of the 2015’s The Theory Of Everything, with a sense of the magnificent. Obviously at ease in each other’s company and their trust in each other’s skill as a performer, the film asks of them to truly go above the parameters of what many an actor would be expected to do, to film scenes at 8,000 feet would be mindboggling, to deliver such dramatic art is absolutely incredible.
If there is a criticism to be levelled at the film it is the removal from history of Henry Coxwell, James Glaisher’s partner in the adventure and scientific advancement of meteorology. Whilst it unconditionally remains right to bring in an amalgamation of the female pioneers of the balloon world, as with Felicity Jones’ incredible version of the imagined, but extraordinary Amelia Wren, to take away a voice from that period, to scrub any voice from any story, is to dishonour the past.
However, nothing can take away from the sheer spectacle of the film, the feeling of anxiety that hits the stomach as the danger of the flight becomes apparent, it is in short, a film of magnificence, of daring, and the unalienable pursuit of human knowledge, the drive that keeps us going.
The Aeronauts is film that cannot but help fly high.
Ian D. Hall