The Long and Short of It: 'The Right Stuff'
Illustration by Jenn Marie Harmeson
In "The Long and Short of It" series, Sam Watermeier writes concise reviews of long epics he's been putting off watching for years. These are the movies that came in bulky two-tape boxes back when VHS was all the rage. This bi-weekly series isn't about watching Sam torture himself; it's about watching him experience long-beloved films for the first time.
The most awe-inspiring moment of the astronaut drama "The Right Stuff" doesn't involve a rocket launch or an orbit around the Earth. It revolves around John Glenn (Ed Harris) talking to his wife on the phone as the press swarms outside their home.
She's scared of revealing her severe stutter to the world, but Glenn assures her that she doesn't have to let anyone through the door, not even Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Forget his heroic space exploration. The love and compassion he shows in this conversation is what proves he has the right stuff.
Written and directed by Philip Kaufman, "The Right Stuff" is a sprawling epic with a lot of filler and a few short, intimate scenes that truly grab us. It follows a group of test pilots from the California airfields to the NASA launch pads. We see the birth of the Mercury Seven astronauts and the media circus that surrounded them. But we never really feel the intense weight of their journey. This film should make us sense the historical impact and emotional heft deep in our bones.
Throughout the first act on the Air Force base, the film simmers with suspense as the men reach death-defying heights and cast clouds of anxiety over their wives' heads. But when they enter the space program, the film takes on a lighthearted tone, transitioning from a taut drama into an episodic ensemble comedy of sorts.
We see the men undergo unusual physical tests (which are all played for laughs), and we watch them yuk it up together in bars and public appearances. A particularly amusing scene finds Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn) urinating in his spacesuit shortly before the first American flight to space. Sure, this is all entertaining, but it ultimately feels shallow. "The Right Stuff" ends up seeming remarkably breezy for such a far-reaching epic.
A masterful epic is a wholly rewarding journey. It's an experience that's far greater than the sum of its parts. "The Right Stuff" has some memorable, heartfelt scenes, but they're few and far between — scattered in the midst of a meandering story. Now, in the age of Netflix, it might be easy to watch the film casually and call it great based on its few striking scenes. But now we even expect the stuff we watch on our couch to immerse us in worlds we won't want to leave for several hours.
"The Right Stuff" is one of the few films in this series so far that feels too long. It doesn't quite work as a three-hour epic. But for a few brief moments, it will leave you wide-eyed with wonder, gazing at the screen in the same way its characters look up at the stars.