SummaryLucy Cola (Natalie Portman) is a strong woman whose determination and drive as an astronaut take her to space, where she’s deeply moved by the transcendent experience of seeing her life from afar. Back home as Lucy’s world suddenly feels too small, her connection with reality slowly unravels.
SummaryLucy Cola (Natalie Portman) is a strong woman whose determination and drive as an astronaut take her to space, where she’s deeply moved by the transcendent experience of seeing her life from afar. Back home as Lucy’s world suddenly feels too small, her connection with reality slowly unravels.
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. But there is more than space missions out there, and our heroine will end finding a purpose in the microcosm of a bee farm (and how similar to a spacesuit is the beekeeping suit!)
What starts out as a promising tale of personal discovery regrettably turns hard to believe, almost campy, in the second half. Despite the film's fact-based nature, its story line degenerates into an overwritten, overacted debacle that almost becomes laughable at times, the otherwise-fine performance of Natalie Portman notwithstanding. Truly a missed opportunity to tell a story with some depth and meaning in an unlikely setting.
Instead of being an intriguing look at an emotional breakdown, “Lucy” is more interested in being a sporadically trippy (and ultimately forgettable) soap opera that by the end has the camp factor of your average Lifetime revenge thriller.
It’s always a downer when talented artists pour everything they’ve got into a film that stubbornly refuses to come to life. That’s the case with Lucy in the Sky.
Sorta-kinda based on the true story of astronaut Lisa Nowak, Noah Hawley’s directorial debut may have started out as a feminist-forward film decrying the fact that women have to work five times as hard to succeed in the workplace, but it ends up being a movie whose message boils down to, “Ladies be crazy.”
It was an interesting premise that doesn't land all its ideas. Undoubtedly Natalie Portman was committed to the role but the rest is quite inconsequential, which was a shame because I really wanted to like this one.
Good Gosh - This Is Nothing But A Sex Movie - Lucy In The Sky was supposed to be science fiction, and I was all set to watch some great special effects - instead all I got was a movie about sex. Sex and infidelity and not being a good wife and not being a good mother and not being a good **** bees. Seriously, Noah Hawley should have done a 'based upon a true story' paint-by-the-numbers directorial debut instead of throwing facts away and creating a fantasy piece that everyone hated. Natalie Portman gives an outstanding performance but everyone else, including the great Jon Hamm, just phoned in their parts. Oh yes - Ellen Burstyn - 'nuff said.
(Mauro Lanari)
In 1877 Tolstoy wrote that "this whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet" ("Anna Karenina", IV, VII). Unbelievable but true, such a consideration never required references to real facts of the 2000s and even less to the experience of a NASA astronaut. "It's cortisol, oxytocin, dopamine. It's a trick. It's like believing in God." Cool.
I saw someone online say this is better than 'Interstellar', and that statement alone nearly made me hurl.
Like, in what way is this boring drivel better?
I watched this on a plane last year, before the COVID outbreak where you could go anywhere, good times. Anywhere, even on a flight journey this couldn't hold my interest.
I liked the TV show 'Legion', a show created by Noah Hawley, but man his directing here is so terrible. Every choice he made was the worst. The number of times the aspect ratio keeps changing I thought I was watching 'Transformers: The Last Knight' again.
Lucy in the Sky starts off okay, but quickly devolves into a lazy, try-hard story about a woman who is losing her mind. Natalie Portman is good, but the rest of the movie isn't. Don't waste your time here.