Rom-coms have both the power to destroy humanity and to also help us flourish. Ella Enchanted– flourish. 27 Dresses– destroy. The Lost City– flourish. The Wedding Planner– destroy. It’s a simple claim corroborated time and time again with all of your problematic faves and all of your wholesome re-watches, though specifically romantic comedies. I have found another rom-com that could potentially at least put a smile on your face and at most resurrect Aristotle. This movie is HBO Max’s triumph, Moonshot.
Its description on HBO Max is: “In a future where Mars is terraformed, two college students sneak onboard a space shuttle from Earth to Mars in order to be united with their significant others.” I simply describe it as a fun time and a silly, goofy movie.
Lana Condor and Cole Sprouse headline as the two main characters and are both alums of my childhood, as both a frequent watcher of X-Men: Apocalypse and an identical twin. My twin also LOVES Jenny Han’s books, so it’s safe to say I am a huge fan of Lana Condor after To All the Boys ruled my years in middle school. Even my English teacher was in love with Peter Kavinsky.
Moonshot surprised me so much. I already knew that I would love Condor, but Cole Sprouse is great when he isn’t in a bolted contract that borders on UN level restriction. Sprouse’s character is a manic-pixie-dream-boy barista that wants to go to Mars and be like his idol, which is Elon Musk but played by Zach Braff, but also just wants to find love with his ideal manic-pixie-dream-girl. Condor is an ambitious woman hell-bent on achieving the life she knows she should want with the guy she should want, but is it all really what she wants?
As someone that has grown up in a time where school means almost nothing until you get past grad school, participate in dozens of extracurriculars, carefully plan out your academic career to match your future career, and map the human genome so you can then find a job, the conflict of struggling between what you should want and what you do want is ever-present. Elevating this level to at least a college level adds some integrity to the plot, which means that at least one production of recency has deviated away from the chokehold that high school media has held on almost all media for decades. It’s a small win, but it’s a win all the same.
With Sprouse’s character, he feeds into the parallel struggle of feeling guilty when doing the things you want instead of the things you should do. I may be blowing this up more than necessary, but intertwining these two situations into a romance is exactly what I love about rom-coms. Romance is something that people often criticize as two-dimensional within plotlines, but having the intersection of personal ambition relating to not only the proper way to be successful, but also the complexity of feminine ambition and how restrictive it can feel. Though I don’t want to spoil too much, this movie focuses more on what Condor’s character, Sophie, deserves and what Sprouse’s character, Walt, can learn from.
Rom-coms often put the men in the movies as the ones that don’t need to really change, they just need the girl. The women however, often have to undergo some kind of emotional or physical makeover where the only difference is that they now focus less on their careers and more on their fairy-tale man. There could be nothing wrong with this, except most movies make it seem like she needed that push, that learning lesson to get her to the spot where she should be. It feels condescending that she’s an outlandish bitch until she finds a guy that mellows her out. In this movie, however, Walt is the outlandish and unemployed bitch that struggles to learn the difference between ambition and selfishness while Sophie tries to learn how to start following her instincts and control her ambition while also making time for herself.
This movie is funny, heartwarming, entertaining, and (most importantly) has a pretty good soundtrack. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and you can feel like getting lost in the ridiculousness without your brain melting. If it took itself too seriously, it’d be Jerry Maguire, and I tend to side with Lego Batman on that movie. I highly recommend this curveball to anyone looking for a laugh and a love that can help them get through a Monday night. Also, Lana Condor, I love you.