October Sky Review
by Susan Granger (Ssg722 AT aol DOT com)February 21st, 1999
Susan Granger's review of "OCTOBER SKY" (Universal Pictures)
"Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my home town was at war with itself over its children, and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives"....is what Homer Hickam, a high school boy in Coalwood, West Virginia, wrote in "Rocket Boys," a memoir which forms the basis for this
wonderful, new coming-of-age film. When on October 4, 1957, the
Russians launched Sputnik, heralding the dawn of the Space Age, it
inspired Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal) to look to the stars rather than
into a bleak future in the coal mines. Working with three high school
friends, and inspired by rocket pioneer Dr. Werner Von Braun, Hickam
begins to design and launch a series of rockets at his own "Cape
Coalwood," a slag heap - much to the disgust and dismay of his father
(Chris Cooper), the mine superintendent. Only his teacher (Laura Dern)
supports him, supplying a book on rocketry and encouraging him to
learn trigonometry to gauge the range of the shots. Everywhere, Homer
Hickam looks there are seemingly insurmountable obstacles blocking him
from his goals of becoming a rocket scientist, yet earning his
father's acceptance and approval. Nevertheless, he doggedly pursues
his soaring dream which, eventually, becomes a fulfillment of the
hopes of the close-knit, rural town. Adapted for the screen by Lewis
Collick and directed by Joe Johnston ("Jumanji"), this is a remarkably
rich, s ensitive, heart-warming family drama. On the Granger Movie
Gauge of 1 to 10, "October Sky" is a triumphant 10, the first "must
see" movie of 1999. And there's a post-script. In Feb., 1998, the
real Homer Hickam took an early retirement from NASA, where he worked
as a space engineer, training astronauts on the space shuttle.
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