October Sky
Biographical Drama | 103 Minutes | 1999 | United States
(3/4)
Director: Joe Johnston | Producers: Charles Gordon, Larry J. Franco | Screenplay: Lewis Colick | Based on: October Sky by Homer Hickam | Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Chris Owen, William Lee Scott, Chad Lindberg, Laura Dern | Music: Mark Isham | Cinematography: Fred Murphy | Editor: Robert Dalva
October Sky is a quaint coming-of-age picture utterly characteristic of this period in American cinema: polished but earnest, overtly sentimental, full of local colour, ostensibly presenting some hard-hitting themes without ever straying from the steely confines of quaint. It’s in the same mould as films like The Cider House Rules and especially Billy Elliot, which it preceded by more than a year: both films centre on their father-son dynamics, set in the industrial heartlands of Coalwood, West Virginia and County Durham respectively, where strike action puts the lifeblood of coal mining at stake. In this case we’re in West Virginia in the late 1950s, and instead of ballet – unthinkable in the era – it’s rockets which prise the young boy away. Homer Hadley Hickam Jr. is positively blinded by science. By my reckoning, this film’s the best in its field.
October Sky tells the true story of Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal), whose father (Chris Cooper) works as the superintendent of the local mine. Sputnik 1 is about to reach low Earth orbit, and as it gleams distantly across the sky Homer begins to envision a way out of town. With the help of his friends, the math whiz Quentin Wilson (Chris Owen), Roy Lee Cooke (William Lee Scott), and Sherman O’Dell (Chad Lindberg), and the support of their Big Creek science teacher Miss Riley (Laura Dern), the group make small makeshift rockets, whose successful launch carries the group to local fame. A forest fire and a mining accident put Homer’s dreams on hold, and he’s forced to grapple with his father’s expectations and the realities of small-town life if his rockets and his aspirations are ever truly to soar.
October Sky was directed by Joe Johnston, better known for effects-laden pictures like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, and Jurassic Park III. It’s a slick feature, but he does manage to leave a few rough-hewn edges, capturing something of the locale and a sense of space. October Sky is as conventional as they come, but it is elevated by some strong performances, notably from Laura Dern, who provides an old Hollywood sheen as well as much of the film’s emotional weight. Thanks partly to her early experiences with David Lynch, and partly to Jurassic Park and her enduring mainstream appeal, Dern is capable of a sort of outsized emotion, overacting and overdramatising almost to the point of satirising the saccharine quality of Hollywood, yet in a way that resonates deeply and pricks at the skin.
Jake Gyllenhaal almost achieves the same sort of timbre, although he’s occasionally a little too wide-eyed. This role is well within Chris Cooper’s wheelhouse, his John Hickam stern and reserved but totally straight. The relationships between Homer and John and the boys and Miss Riley are genuinely touching. The film also boasts one helluva score, with songs of the period by Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Tommy Edwards, The Coasters, and The Platters, most lofty of all.
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