Hollywood has a bit of a fascination with modern biographical dramas. We can’t really blame them, either. Moviegoers are flocking to films like Lone Survivor and Eddie the Eagle for a good reason. Real, tangible human drama and human tragedy are far easier to relate to than even the best pieces of fiction. When we recognize that the intensity of a film is based on real events (some of which we have may have lived through or experienced) we are drawn to it. It’s why 24-hour news networks keep growing, and why most of the coverage seems to focus on human tragedy of all kinds. Sex sells. Pain, anguish, and conflict all sell. Most of us have been conditioned to believe that for a film to even be passably entertaining, it has to have at least some combination of those things.
Oddly enough, Sully doesn’t authentically deliver on any those. The “Miracle on the Hudson” was only a miracle because the crisis was wholly averted. The primary conflict was an internal one. And the closest we get to physical intimacy is when a hotel manager gives Captain Sully an awkward, adoring hug. By all normal measures of what modern moviegoers seem to find popular these days, Sully should be hobbling out of the gate. The movie at times feels like a handicapped Titanic, sans tragedy. But it’s not. The reason so many viewers may seem to find the film so surprisingly entertaining has to do with our emotions related to manned flight itself.
In 2013, ABC News published an article by a travel site CEO titled “Fear of Flying? Some Good Things to Know”. Using the ever-common practice of starting with a contextually relevant example, author Rick Seaney writes, “Nobody zeroes in on the angst of modern day America better than comedian Louis CK. One of his best bits: Slamming cranky passengers for failing to recognize the miracle of flying.” Indeed, many of us still seem to perceive flight as a rather miraculous thing. But, to use a rather loaded term, flight is a "settled science". We've mastered the skies. We've even been to the moon, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and even the very edge of our own solar system. We have nothing left to learn about terrestrial flight, right? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
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