After the back-to-back knockouts of “Free Solo” and “The Rescue” — the former earning them an Oscar, the latter unceremoniously snubbed last year — Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi turn to the sky in their new Netflix documentary “Return to Space.” Unfortunately, the married duo stumble in their profile of Elon Musk, SpaceX, and the 2020 manned Dragon Demo-2 launch. More skewed toward hero-worship than one would expect from the filmmakers, “Return to Space ” is ostensibly a profile of the tireless workers of SpaceX, but more often than not comes across as an apologia for Musk’s conduct over the past five or so years.
“Return to Space” uses the Demo-2 launch as a framing device, juxtaposing preparations against archival footage of the Challenger, Columbia, and the eventual decommissioning of NASA’s shuttle program in 2011. Quickly recounting the origins of SpaceX, the film settles into a groove once it narrows in on the various test flights and preparations that would eventually lead to the first manned launch in nearly a decade.
Musk is, and always will be, a contentious figure. The film doesn’t exactly shy away from his eccentricities — a small bit of his infamous Joe Rogan interview is shown, as are any number of wide-eyed proclamations about the possibilities of becoming a “multi-planetary species” — but the film also veers into the promotional. Chin and Vasarhelyi interview various employees of SpaceX as they extol the virtues of Musk, privatization, and the return of space travel.
What isn’t really interrogated, however, are the reasons that Musk is interested in space travel in the first place. One might leave the film thinking the founder is a benevolent do-gooder whose childhood dreams — and love of “Spaceballs” — made him want to go to space, not realizing that, you know, he wants to colonize Mars. Further, the movement towards privatized space travel is treated as an inevitability and not a concerning trend of governmental programs being run by companies that hope to turn a profit.
Chin and Vasarhelyi are also seemingly caught in a bind, obviously given almost unfettered access to SpaceX, especially during the launch. They try to find some balance, or at least context, between the wonders of space travel and the reasons why a billionaire would be interested in it, but this is a film more attuned to optimistic platitudes than any type of deep dive into the nuances of SpaceX and the implications of a movement towards corporate space travel.
The film becomes more focused in the second half when it, not surprisingly, moves away from Musk and turns towards the Dragon Demo-2 launch astronauts —Doug Hurley and Bob Behnke — and those in mission control. The two astronauts are affable, engaging, and really just seem happy to go into space. Compiling footage from SpaceX, NASA, video diaries, and interviews, “Return to Space” manages to squeeze out enough suspense from the weather delays during launch and the radio blackout during re-entry, despite everyone knowing that the flight goes fine. When the astronauts are on the International Space Station, “Return to Space” wisely stays with them as they adjust to life up there.
After two films that weren’t afraid to embrace subjectivity and point-of-view to create suspense — i.e. the entire last third of “Free Solo” — “Return to Space” is a bit too neatly packaged and overly idealistic about what SpaceX might mean for space travel. By turning their focus up to the stars, the filmmakers, unfortunately, ignore the myriad issues that private space travel creates on earth. [C+]