If Brad Pitt blasting off into space is too out there for you, the forthcoming The Aeronauts stays a little closer to home. Directed by Tom Harper (Peaky Blinders), the film is based on the work of James Glaisher, a British meteorologist, astronomer, and pioneering balloonist, or aeronaut. Those passions combine in the film, which sees Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) try to break an altitude record for a hot-air balloon expedition. He gets a lift from Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones, who co-starred with Redmayne in The Theory Of Everything), a rich widow who, wouldn’t you know it, flouts convention like many a Felicity Jones character.
Like a lot of biographical films, The Aeronauts apparently takes some liberties—the real Glaisher made most of his expeditions with Henry Coxwell, not a fictional widow. But Amazon reportedly wanted to recapture Redmayne and Jones’ Theory Of Everything magic. We’ll see how that pays off when The Aeronauts wafts into theaters on December 6.