Lucy in the Sky

The film is inspired by the true story of Lisa Nowak, a former NASA astronaut who was arrested for attacking the girlfriend (also an astronaut) of another astronaut with whom she’d had an affair.

In the film, the protagonist, played by Natalie Portman, is called Lucy Cola, a highly trained astronaut, who thanks to hard work and evident talent is selected for a ten-day mission on board the ISS (International Space Station).

On returning, however, Lucy feels changed. Everyday life on Earth seems to her empty and useless compared to the experience she lived.

Her husband, who works as PR at NASA, is unable to understand the psychological change she has undergone. And so she, who in the meantime continues to train to be able to participate as soon as possible in another mission, befriends Mark Goodwin (played by Jon Hamm, that one from Mad Men), also an astronaut (divorced and with two young daughters), and two other colleagues, finding in them for the first time people who share the same mood. Mark’s friendship, in particular, leads to an affair, in which however she seems more interested than he is.

I can’t tell you more to avoid any spoilers, as the cinematic story, despite having the same ending as the real one, gives its own interpretation to subsequent events.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the film, and I’m pretty surprised that I only found negative reviews on the web. I believe that this is a beautiful psychological analysis of a character offered to the public by exploiting the potential of cinema. In this regard, the director’s choices are quite original. For example, the choice of continuously changing the aspect ratio of the image to contrast the expanded vision (of the cinema screen) of being in space, or even just of living situations that bring back the thought to that experience, to the 4:3 of TV used to narrate that silly everyday life in which Lucy can no longer find her own dimension.

But what is particularly beautiful is Lucy and the way Portman portrayed her.

I felt a lot of empathy towards her. Although her behaviour in the end was obviously exaggerated (and in any case it does not seem to correspond to the real facts), I could understand the exasperation she felt in feeling alone and betrayed as a woman in a world of men who accuse her of being “too much emotional” (even if in her work she is precise and cold as none of them know how to be), in having lost everything that mattered to her (returning to space and a family person very dear to her).

I believe that anyone who has had great disappointments in life (in the private or professional domain) can understand the state of mind of those who, having reached the apex of something, feel ill-suited to returning to “normality”, as if they feel like an alien trapped in a monotonous and insignificant world.

In short, I loved it.
If psychological dramas with an astronautical background appeal to you, I suggest you watch it.