Review of Lucy in the Sky (2019) by Aurora1 — 15 Jan 2021

Lucy in the Sky alerts the audience that the film is inspired by real events, but there is very little of those events in this movie, thankfully. On the one hand we have an astronaut, Lisa Nowak, whose career is paved by brilliant successes, she is the flagship of NASA and an example of female emancipation to look upon with admiration, until the tragic moment when she loses her mind because of a love affair and shows one side of her personality that is not quite edifying: she cheats on her husband with a colleague who is also married, then when he ditches her for another woman she tries to kidnap - and perhaps kill? - the new flame of her ex lover.

A crime story mainly remembered for the embarrassing detail of the diapers used by the woman in order to drive without having to stop, during the 900 miles towards the destination of her criminal project.

From hero to zero in the blink of an eye. On the other hand, the movie's protagonist is portrayed as a victim: of an almost exclusively male professional world and of a lover who does not treat her with respect and even jeopardizes her work.

The astronaut depicted on the screen, played by a magnificent Natalie Portman, is a figure to look at with compassion, a bright star that inexorably collapses under our eyes piece by piece: initially splendid in her space suit, pathetic rag doll with a ridiculous blonde wig at the end, as she attempts to attack her ex boyfriend.

In between, the dream of flying, shared by both the real and the imaginary protagonists, rendered on the screen with delicate and poetic touches by director Noah Hawley. A broken dream, which is powerfully symbolized by the scene of a cocoon from which emerges not a butterfly but a gruesome handful of flies.