astronaut

Timely for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing, Shelagh McLeod’s debut feature revolves around a lonely widower whose dreams about being an astronaut and space travel have never faded.

Astronaut, which Shelagh McLeod both wrote and directed, is a kind of marvel; a movie that on the surface sounds like a sappy, forgettable drama about an old man going to space. Instead, McLeod’s balance of family drama and space travel are perfectly matched and just as the movie starts to tip into the saccharin, she sidesteps to tackle another aspect of the story that keeps the movie moving along.