Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood review – a lovable and self-indulgent ’60s yarn

Though the easiest selling point of Apollo 10½ is absolutely its “10 year old kid goes to the moon in a secret mission just before Neil Armstrong lands there” premise, that isn’t really what Richard Linklater’s nostalgic new feature is really about. As its subtitle – A Space Age Childhood – suggests, this sweet but slight animation is really about Linklater’s own life, a deeply personal study of middle-class childhood in ‘60s Houston that most succeeds in turning its self-indulgences into something lovable.

Linklater is here represented by Stanley (Milo Coy), the youngest of six siblings in a suburban household with a dad who works for one of the more boring divisions of NASA. Through an almost omnipresent voiceover from the adult Stan (voice provided by Jack Black), we learn all the ins and outs of his remembered life, from the TV he watched to the corporal punishment he received at school to the days out with his chaotic but caring family.

Linklater injects the plot early on. In Spring 1969, two NASA officials (played by Glen Powell and Zachary Levi) approach Stanley at his school with the embarrassing revelation that a miscalculation has led to the lunar module being built too small, so they need a child to pilot it to the moon in a test run. Of course, Stanley can’t resist, and so follows his training and eventual trip to the stars.

Except, that’s not quite how it plays out. As soon as this story has been set in motion, Linklater leaps back in time to the months before to let us get to know everything about Stanley, his family, and his neighbourhood. The sheer volume of specific detail almost borders on free-association territory and, fittingly, really does feel like we’re being let into the memories of a ten-year-old, different side stories tapering off in favour of an exciting new recollection that pops up suddenly.

A lot of this is very sweet, particularly all the sibling relationship scenes as they fight, scheme, and make up overly complex games to play, though it is at times a bit exhausting, so concerned as Apollo 10½ is with showing just about everything Stanley can possibly remember. Of course, Linklater is a known rambler, but Apollo doesn’t quite have the piercing poignancy of a Before film or the glorious big laughs of, say, 2016’s Everybody Wants Some.

Linklater uses the same sort of rotoscoping technique for the animation as he did with Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly but, even at the third time of asking, it takes some getting used to. There’s some real beauty in the gleaming sunlight of Stanley’s after-school afternoons and his visions of the cosmos on his mission, but the movement of characters’ mouths is just off, which can stifle the performances.

With its focus on memory, Apollo 10½ cleverly dodges having to explain how and why exactly Stanley’s space trip is necessary or plausible for NASA, and whether this mission is even real. Its place in Stanley’s reverent memory of the actual moon landings makes it both real and fantastical, a nostalgic dream of both a time where everyone was actually excited about the future and the last moments of pure childhood innocence in Stanley’s life. It’s a message both melancholic and hopeful, one that can sometimes get lost beneath the motormouth narration, but one you’ll be glad to sit with as the credits roll.

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood is released in cinemas on 25 March.