By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
In the mood for escapist adventure? See “The Aeronauts” about two of the most intrepid explorers in the history of ballooning.
In 1862, pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) enlisted daredevil balloon pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) to fly higher than anyone in history, taking off from London’s Vauxhall Pleasure Garden. Their backgrounds and how they met are revealed in flashbacks.
While advancing knowledge about the weather and breaking records, they faced a myriad physical and emotional challenges.
While Glaisher was a founding member of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, the character of Wren is a composite of several pilots, particularly France’s flamboyant Sophie Blanchard, who set off fireworks from her balloon at night.
For authenticity, director Tom Harper, who cowrote with Jack Thorne, had a replica 19th century gas balloon built and filmed aerial scenes in actual flight and in a studio with blue screens. To chronicle their reactions to higher elevations, Redmayne and Jones worked in a “cold box,” a confined space that lowered the temperature to below freezing, so their shivers, visible breath and glassy eyes are real.
To replicate Amelia’s physicality, Jones spent six months working with a trainer to build the core strength needed to hang off ropes and she trained with an aerialist to learn acrobatics and trapeze. Both Jones and Redmayne went to Germany to learn about gas air ballooning from experts: father-son aeronauts Willy and Benni Elmers.
Cinematographer George Steel captures dizzying visuals, allowing the audience to experience what soaring above Earth must have felt like. Particularly memorable interludes include their encounter with a cloud of butterflies and Amelia’s perilous climb up the balloon’s exterior to release a frozen gas valve.
Initially, this film was planned in spectacular IMAX but that didn’t work out. Now, it’s best seen on the big-screen in theaters before debuting on Amazon Prime Video on Dec. 20th.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Aeronauts” is a visually splendid 7, saluting a brave woman who was happiest in the clouds.
While the topic of whistle-blowing is timely, “Dark Waters,” a legal drama inspired by true events, gets bogged down in dull procedural trivia.
Back in 1998, Cincinnati corporate environmental defense attorney Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) was approached by a desperate West Virginia farmer, Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp), who told him that toxic waste from DuPont was either causing disastrous birth defects and/or killing his cows.
Ironically, Bilot had just been promoted to partner in a conservative law firm that represented chemical companies, and he was not only familiar with Parkersburg, where DuPont was the biggest employer, but also his grandmother lived nearby.
Fortunately for Bilot, his supervising partner at the law firm, Tom Terp (Tim Robbins), was sympathetic, allowing Bilot to spend, literally, years investigating. What Bilot discovered involved a nearly 50 year-old synthetic polymer called PFOA, used in making Teflon products, which DuPont had been dumping onto the local landfill.
Meanwhile, as his career is in jeopardy and family funds dwindle as a result of four pay cuts, Bilot’s wife, Sarah (Anne Hathaway), a former lawyer who gave up her career to raise a family, is running out of patience.
Eventually, DuPont was forced to pay the largest fine in EPA’s history: $16.5 million and an additional $671 million to the 3,535 innocent West Virginians who filed personal injury lawsuits.
Based on Nathaniel Rich’s 2016 New York Times Magazine article, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” it’s painstakingly adapted by Mario Correa and Matt Carnahan and methodically directed by Todd Haynes (“Safe,” “Far From Heaven,” “Carol”).
FYI: DuPont and other American companies have phased out using PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), as the EPA is working on legal standards for its use. But PFOA and other compounds are called “forever chemicals” because it could take hundreds or thousands of years for them to breakdown.
FYI: Far better whistleblower films include “Silkwood” (1983), “The Insider” (2000) and “Erin Brockovich” (2000).
On the Granger Gauge, “Dark Waters” is an all-too- conventional 5, revolving around a sincere social activist.
There’s potential buried deep inside “21 Bridges,” a violent crime-thriller that follows the NYPD hunt for two masked criminals who left eight police officers for dead in a drug heist gone wrong but, unfortunately, it never surfaces.
After grabbing bags of cocaine and committing those murders, Michael (Stephan James) and his older partner Ray (Taylor Kitsch), two Iraq veterans, go on the run.
“There are 21 bridges in and out of Manhattan. Shut ‘em down!” is the Mayor’s order, so that’s just what Homicide Detective Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman) and his unit do.
With the support of his tough narcotics-agent partner Frankie Burns (Sienna Miller) and 85th Precinct Police Captain McKenna (J.K. Simmons), he’s determined to find the thugs.
When Davis was a teenager, his heroic police-officer father was killed by a junkie in the line of duty. As a result, uncompromising Davis has become so trigger-happy that Internal Affairs has opened an investigation into his behavior.
As the long night progresses, it turns out that, instead of 30 kilos of cocaine, the culprits have 300 kilos — and lots of corrupt cops are involved.
Meanwhile, the Big Apple is in chaos. Commuter trains and subways stop and tunnels are blocked as the manhunt progresses, computer-monitored by the Local Mobile Station Identity Unit. (This is all described via TV news, rather than being shown on-screen.)
Based on a generic story by Adam Mervis, it’s shallowly scripted with clichéd dialogue by Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan and heavy-handedly helmed by veteran TV director Brian Kirk (“Game of Thrones”), making his feature-film debut and focusing on mind-numbing gunfights and car chases.
Actor Chadwick Boseman, who proved himself in “Black Panther,” deserves better.
FYI: It was actually filmed in Philadelphia.
On the Granger Gauge, “21 Bridges” is a fast-paced, confusing 4. What a waste of time and talent.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
