APOLLO 10 ½. Longing for childhood

You’d have to be made of stone not to get swept away by nostalgia while watching Apollo 10 ½. Richard Linklater’s film is nothing less than a love letter to the 1960s, but also an expression of longing for childhood. I wouldn’t have any problem with that if it weren’t for the fact that these qualities overshadowed the desire to tell an engaging story. And that is precisely what this film lacks, which I see as a major oversight.

Richard Linklater has revisited childhood many times throughout his work. It’s worth mentioning the brilliant Boyhood, which—thanks to its extraordinary production method (the film was shot in stages over long periods of time to allow the actors to age naturally)—became a true model of determination and meticulousness in exploring themes related to the director’s own coming of age. There is hardly any doubt that Linklater weaves autobiographical elements into his films. This is also evident in Apollo 10 ½, set precisely in the years when the director himself was growing up.

Watching this Netflix production, I couldn’t shake associations with Bill Burr’s animated comedy F Is for Family. Here too, with tongue firmly in cheek and sharp humor, the author returns to the 1960s and 70s, once again asking what worked well in childhood and what could have been better. Inevitably, films like this send a message that the culture of that era can in many respects rival today’s. Apollo 10 ½ makes this point quite strongly. The director goes to great lengths to argue that the very time when he grew up was the most fascinating period for kids. Was it, though?

Perhaps this was meant to lend credibility to the fact that the whole story is told from the perspective of a ten-year-old boy. The narration, marked by childlike naivety, certainly adds charm. The backdrop for the director’s nostalgic recollections is the year 1969—the famous Apollo 11 moon landing. This time, the focus isn’t on how monumental this event was for humanity. What matters more is how significant it was for an individual. The director seems more interested in using this historic moment as a pretext to highlight one of childhood’s defining traits—the overwhelming tendency to give in to dreams. The protagonist of Apollo 10 ½ is clearly a dreamer. He believes that before Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, NASA had sent a small boy into space to blaze the trail for the Apollo 11 crew.

Linklater here not only returns to his childhood but also to an animation technique he has used before. Apollo 10 ½ is another film, after A Scanner Darkly, created using rotoscoping. In short, it’s a technique that transforms live-action footage into animation. Everything you see on screen was first acted out. Stylistically, I don’t have many complaints about Apollo 10 ½. The film’s colors create an intriguing, captivating atmosphere that partly echoes the vibrancy of counterculture times. It’s a pleasure to look at Apollo 10 ½, but unfortunately, beneath this colorful surface, there is nothing equally compelling.

The biggest problem with this film, I think, is that it relies solely on the author’s need to externalize memories and emotions, presenting them in an attractive form. For a whole hour, the first act unfolds—a prologue that, initially suggested, was meant merely to sketch the setting. This prolonged introduction is nothing more than a collage of postcards from the 1960s, some fitting better than others. What follows is a deeply disappointing development of the plot. The space mission suggested in the title is ultimately just a pretext, a metaphor. It’s not really what the film is about. What matters far more is the desire to once again elevate the sensitivity—and, to some extent, the naivety—of childhood.

As JFK said in his famous speech, to which the creators of Apollo 10 ½ refer: we didn’t go to the Moon because it was easy, but because it was hard. Yet before that could happen, we had to dream about it. This film is partly about that very notion. But it’s not enough to make the story engaging. It’s not enough to stop Apollo 10 ½ from feeling like a 90-minute, flashy music video, stitched together from the director’s loose memories and filtered through his (still childlike) sensitivity. That said, I am convinced there will be those for whom this alone is enough to find satisfaction in watching it.