The Journal is an online collection of articles and essays written and curated by Thomas W Coombs, published bi-annually.

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Issue 26; Up and Away, The Aeronauts

written by @coombstw

My home town has the best cinema, it is a blast from the past, with small tickets that you got in the 50’s to art deco through out.  It is amazing and cheap. With all this in mind I try and go to everything I can if the film is one I even slightly may want to see it.  And this took me to see Amazon original film The Aeronauts.

Starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones it is about a scientist in 1862 James Glaisher and widow Amelia Wren the pilot who fly a balloon expedition to go higher than anyone in history to measure the weather, so it can be predicted.  This shows us the first weatherman and his fun and perilous journey. I have heard this film called Gravity put with a balloon and parts of it maybe, there are action sequences, nice moments and dramatic scenes. And thankfully not a spaceship or super hero in sight.

The film isn’t just on a balloon, it begins with the take off then throughout has flashbacks to their life before the flight and also how and why they met and what brought them to being in a basket very high up in the sky.  Even though the parts in the balloon are really entertaining and the film just rolls on magically.

At ninety minutes it was a change to just enjoy a film without getting uncomfortable and then to leave feeling happy and not over indulged.

I would certainly recommend this film on the acting and chemistry of the two leads alone, but the script and effects are just perfection.