“Rudy.” “Miracle.” “Eddie The Eagle.” “Invincible.” This small handful of films may admittedly all share a common theme revolving around sports. Still, more importantly, they tell true stories about underdogs with a dream, which can be found throughout many other related efforts over the past 100+ years of cinema history, as seen in titles ranging from “The Insider” to “Erin Brockovich.” Familiar tropes include family/friends questioning the main character’s plan, some adversity throughout, plus repeated tries and failure to reach that goal. A predictable ending, all backed by a rousing score courtesy of, say, John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith. Though the backdrop of director Alejandra Márquez Abella’s “A Million Miles Away” finds itself changed from athletic pursuits to working for NASA and takes advantage of another true story that manages to avoid several clichés while embracing the rest, “A Million Miles Away” is ultimately just another entry onto a long list of interchangeable siblings, in some ways possessing its own distinct voice and yet still indistinguishable from so many others that have come before.
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It’s unfortunate, as this type of film can have the ability to draw out decent performances and take a stab at inspiration, even if the latter may often be achieved in a reasonably straightforward manner that manipulates audience emotions while sometimes overshadowing details that those behind the scenes have left out, whether intentional or otherwise. Luckily, “A Million Miles Away” seems to embrace almost all facets of its subject’s life, that being José Hernández (Michael Peña), a Mexican-American astronaut who would go on to reach his destination after thirty years of hoping for that moment when he’d find himself placed on the crew of STS-128 in 2009 in the wake of countless rejections from NASA that the valiant Hernández had to endure on his journey. The film begins during Hernández’s childhood, following the youth as he helps his hardworking family in the fields during the yearly harvest while simultaneously proving himself to be something of a prodigy in the classroom. It’s here that we meet his teacher, Miss Young, played safely by Michelle Krusiec, taking a page from Laura Dern’s near-identical role in “October Sky” as the person who would serve to guide Hernández in the right academic direction; from this point, events unfold as tried and true as every other film of this type, showing Hernández as his eventual graduation leads to work as an engineer, all the while raising a family alongside wife Adela (Rosa Salazar) and holding tight to that wish of one day sitting amongst the stars.
As Adela, Salazar does an acceptable job as the supportive anchor to Hernández’s dream, while Michael Peña again proves his ability to play a character without much that could be considered a complaint, though little exists on Pena’s part to rise above an average level of portrayal. Recurring motifs such as Hernández’s father Salvador’s (Julio Cesar Cedillo) metaphor for life involving the generations-long journey a Monarch butterfly endures, the division of the film into chapters, each with a title taken from a piece of guidance also delivered in the same fashion and even a Hernández family group hug are all nice dramatic touchstones, but as soon as we shift to the next scene do said touchstones fade into the background all too quickly. Abella’s direction is similar without much flash, also choosing to play it safe though taking a unique approach by utilizing a soundtrack that’s equal parts traditional Mexican and emotional Hollywood score; this same approach is seen in other ways throughout, as scenes set within NASA’s training facilities find themselves bookended by clips of Hernández’s family and Mexican culture. This juxtaposition helps the film position itself somewhat on its own as a standout from its peers, even as several emotional moments in the third act feel like additional boxes filled in on the biopic checklist, and the film’s two-hour runtime does raise the question of whether it could have been even the slightest bit shorter.
Abella, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Bettina Gilois and Hernan Jimenez based on Hernández’s autobiography, certainly can’t be faulted for trying to craft a memorable film that seems to want to exist outside the realm of formula, but it isn’t until the credits begin their own journey to the top of the screen is it determined that not much exists to warrant consideration during awards season or one day deeming it a landmark entry in the world of the cinematic underdog. It’s inoffensive, possibly even heartwarming, and an undeniably terrific story in terms of adversarial triumph, and as history looks back on “A Million Miles Away” as much as it remembers the real Hernández, unlike the man himself, the movie will likely find itself forgotten. [B-]