‘A Million Miles Away’ film evaluation: It charms and conjures up with the story of an unlikely astronaut

By Associated Press

If ever there was an inspirational story about reaching for the celebs, it is “A Million Miles,” the real-life journey of a how a boy who grew up as a migrant farmworker turned a NASA astronaut.

It begins within the corn fields of Michoacan, Mexico, as José Hernández appears up into the sky in marvel, and it ends two hours later with him 200 miles above the Earth within the International Space Station.

“Tell me something,” his cousin tells him. “Who better than a migrant? Somebody who knows what it’s like to dive into the unknown. Who better than that?”

Biopics with outsized heroes can lay it on thick, however “A Million Miles” manages to maintain its hero’s ft firmly on earth earlier than his area shot, largely because of star Michael Peña as Hernández and Rosa Salazar as his spouse. They maintain their characters’ humanity even because the soundtrack and visuals blast off. He could also be an astronaut, however somebody nonetheless must take out the trash.

Screenwriters Bettina Gilois, Hernán Jiménez and Alejandra Márquez Abella — who base their story on Hernández’s memoir — inform a linear story of a gifted younger man who’s helped alongside the way in which by a trainer, his mother and father and his prolonged household. He is rejected so many instances by NASA that he retains all their letters in a folder.

Rosa Salazar, proper, and Michael Pena in a scene from “A Million Miles Away.”

Everyone sacrifices for Hernández to finally develop into a mission specialist: His mother and father cease transferring from subject to subject and lose their residence, his spouse delays her goals of opening a restaurant and Hernández himself misses the beginning of a kid and spends infinite hours away making ready. As an engineer, he’s mistaken for a janitor at his first day at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“A Million Miles” is properly extra about one man’s obsession and properly touches on subjects like racism, assimilation, deferred goals, household guilt and dedication. “Tenacity is a superpower,” he’s instructed and that is a reasonably nice lesson amid all these superhero flicks.

In some ways, the film is an outsized twin to a different biopic this yr — “Flamin’ Hot,” the story of how a struggling however tenacious Mexican-American janitor got here up with the hit snack Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. “A Million Miles” even has a scene with a bowl of Doritos.

Alejandra Márquez Abella directs with assurance and there are some actually elegant touches, like when a field of paperwork dissolves to develop into a field of subject crops or when the digicam captures Hernández as a boy within the household automobile after which seamlessly reveals him all grown up in a automobile following.

But the director additionally threatens to put it on thick, like including the picture of a Monarch butterfly floating within the area shuttle — an emblem from the movie’s first frames however one which feels laboured by the point zero-gravity has been reached. We’ve already had a shot of farmworkers gazing up of their subject as his shuttle streaks heavenward.

Better are the scenes during which Hernández tries to make himself typical NASA materials, like buying and selling in his Impala for one thing extra suburban, consuming sandwiches at work — not enchiladas — and giving up blasting Mexican music for Rick Astley. “I think you’re trying to forget who you are,” he’s instructed.

There is a scene later with no dialogue that soars as a result of we have watched Hernández persist for thus lengthy: Seeing him drive via the NASA headquarters entrance gate with a Los Tigres del Norte music blaring from his truck and a smile on his lips.

Peña nearly underplays his hero — a wise transfer and properly completed — however Salazar threatens to steal the movie fully as a powerful, loving, stressed-out mom and spouse. “We grew up watching our people make sacrifices. It’s on us now,” she says.

Toward the tip, he reveals up at her restaurant in a kind of coveted blue astronaut coveralls for the primary time after being chosen to fly to area and is promptly despatched to the kitchen. They are a dishwasher down, in any case, and he must put in a shift, NASA or not. That completely captures this candy, loving and worthwhile portrait of a household’s grit.

If ever there was an inspirational story about reaching for the celebs, it is “A Million Miles,” the real-life journey of a how a boy who grew up as a migrant farmworker turned a NASA astronaut.

It begins within the corn fields of Michoacan, Mexico, as José Hernández appears up into the sky in marvel, and it ends two hours later with him 200 miles above the Earth within the International Space Station.

“Tell me something,” his cousin tells him. “Who better than a migrant? Somebody who knows what it’s like to dive into the unknown. Who better than that?”googletag.cmd.push(operate() googletag.show(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); );

Biopics with outsized heroes can lay it on thick, however “A Million Miles” manages to maintain its hero’s ft firmly on earth earlier than his area shot, largely because of star Michael Peña as Hernández and Rosa Salazar as his spouse. They maintain their characters’ humanity even because the soundtrack and visuals blast off. He could also be an astronaut, however somebody nonetheless must take out the trash.

Screenwriters Bettina Gilois, Hernán Jiménez and Alejandra Márquez Abella — who base their story on Hernández’s memoir — inform a linear story of a gifted younger man who’s helped alongside the way in which by a trainer, his mother and father and his prolonged household. He is rejected so many instances by NASA that he retains all their letters in a folder.

Rosa Salazar, proper, and Michael Pena in a scene from “A Million Miles Away.”

Everyone sacrifices for Hernández to finally develop into a mission specialist: His mother and father cease transferring from subject to subject and lose their residence, his spouse delays her goals of opening a restaurant and Hernández himself misses the beginning of a kid and spends infinite hours away making ready. As an engineer, he’s mistaken for a janitor at his first day at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“A Million Miles” is properly extra about one man’s obsession and properly touches on subjects like racism, assimilation, deferred goals, household guilt and dedication. “Tenacity is a superpower,” he’s instructed and that is a reasonably nice lesson amid all these superhero flicks.

In some ways, the film is an outsized twin to a different biopic this yr — “Flamin’ Hot,” the story of how a struggling however tenacious Mexican-American janitor got here up with the hit snack Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. “A Million Miles” even has a scene with a bowl of Doritos.

Alejandra Márquez Abella directs with assurance and there are some actually elegant touches, like when a field of paperwork dissolves to develop into a field of subject crops or when the digicam captures Hernández as a boy within the household automobile after which seamlessly reveals him all grown up in a automobile following.

But the director additionally threatens to put it on thick, like including the picture of a Monarch butterfly floating within the area shuttle — an emblem from the movie’s first frames however one which feels laboured by the point zero-gravity has been reached. We’ve already had a shot of farmworkers gazing up of their subject as his shuttle streaks heavenward.

Better are the scenes during which Hernández tries to make himself typical NASA materials, like buying and selling in his Impala for one thing extra suburban, consuming sandwiches at work — not enchiladas — and giving up blasting Mexican music for Rick Astley. “I think you’re trying to forget who you are,” he’s instructed.

There is a scene later with no dialogue that soars as a result of we have watched Hernández persist for thus lengthy: Seeing him drive via the NASA headquarters entrance gate with a Los Tigres del Norte music blaring from his truck and a smile on his lips.

Peña nearly underplays his hero — a wise transfer and properly completed — however Salazar threatens to steal the movie fully as a powerful, loving, stressed-out mom and spouse. “We grew up watching our people make sacrifices. It’s on us now,” she says.

Toward the tip, he reveals up at her restaurant in a kind of coveted blue astronaut coveralls for the primary time after being chosen to fly to area and is promptly despatched to the kitchen. They are a dishwasher down, in any case, and he must put in a shift, NASA or not. That completely captures this candy, loving and worthwhile portrait of a household’s grit.