“THE AERONAUTS”: Butterflies

Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne

Published December 10, 2019 by Robert W. Butler at Butler’s Cinema Scene

My rating: B  (Now showing at the Glenwood Arts; on  Amazon Prime Dec. 20)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

An aerial thriller packed with gobsmacking visual splendors, “The Aeronauts” is also historically based…though not so much as to let facts muck up our enjoyment.

In 1862 two Londoners — one a sort of female daredevil and the other a stuffy scientific sort — risk their lives on a balloon ride into sky. Their goal is to set an altitude record for human survival…at that time about 20,000 feet.

They’ll go considerably higher than that.

Our protagonists are Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones), an experienced balloonist thanks to her late lamented husband, and James Glashier (Eddie Redmayne), who is something of a laughing stock in the science community for his theories on weather prediction.

For her the ascent is a chance to commune privately with the spirit of her dead love and revel in the wonders of our atmosphere; for him this initial ride into the sky will allow him to take measurements that will bring about understanding of the nature of this envelope of air in which our Earth resides.

There really was a James Glashier, although in 1862 he was an overweight middle-aged husband and father and already respected in scientific circles. Amelia Wren, however, is the fictional creation of director Tom Harper and co-writer Jack Thorne, an obvious attempt to create a heroic female protagonist who will resonate with women viewers.  Not that I’m complaining.

The film begins with the pair’s sendoff before a wildly cheering crowd in a London park.  Amelia arrives in paint and shortened petticoats to do cartwheels before the wicker gondola and pose prettily.  Glashier is embarrassed by all the show-biz hoopla.

But before long they’re airborne for a ride that in just 90 minutes will test them to the limit.

Harper’s film alternates between the ride and flashbacks to the pair’s past.

We see Amelia with her spouse (Vincent Perez), her months of depression after his death and the efforts of her sister (Phoebe Fox) to reintroduce the widow to society.

We see Glassier interact with his once-brilliant, now senile father (Tom Courtenay), enduring the disdain of his fellow brainiacs, and planning and theorizing with his best bud (Himesh Patel).

Frankly, it’s all filler. What matters is the 60 or so minutes spent in the air.

The view from up there is incredible.  But Amelia and Glashier must first endure a wild ride through a thunderstorm that has them dangling from ropes like twitching marionettes.  Finally back in the sunshine they discover a vast flock of yellow butterflies migrating at high altitude…it’s quite magical.

Things get colder. Frost starts forming on every surface. Glassier begins suffering from altitude sickness…he wants to keep ascending despite Amelia’s warnings that he’s losing his reason (and, soon, his consciousness).

But when she tries to open the valve that will release the gas and allow the balloon to descend, it’s frozen. Which means that with frostbit fingers and hoar-coverd hair she must climb the outside of the massive balloon, reach the top and kick open the uncooperative mechanism.

All this before the two die of either cold or oxygen deprivation.

Now we’re talking butterflies of the intestinal variety. Talk about suspense!

The reunited Jones and Redmayne (they played opposite one another in 2014’s “The Theory of Everything”) seem to be having a terrific time.  He’s got the science dweeb down pat, but it’s her swashbuckling performance that steals the show.  Her Amelia is an action heroine right up there with Sigourney Weaver’s Ridley.

Special kudos go to cinematographer George Steel and a vast army of f/x nerds who make their ride seem utterly believable.

| Robert W. Butler