The Tom Hanks movie that made Tom Hanks cry: “It was so powerful and so heavy”
Apollo 13 is the name of a space mission headed to the moon that almost got a lot of astronauts killed when its internal systems failed, and the spacemen got this close to suffocating. It’s also the name of a 1995 movie starring Tom Hanks, dramatising the incident. The movie was far, far more successful than the space mission, earning more awards and critical accolades than the astronauts had gasps of air by the end of the film and real-life incident. They didn’t land on the moon, but the film might as well have.
Tom Hanks has been criticised for cherrypicking safe roles that inscribe his reputation as the everyman, the humble cornfed hero. Unsophisticated and uncomplicated but always wholesome. His role in Apollo 13 doesn’t stray far from this. Whether you think this is cowardice or just good brand management is a matter of opinion. These roles will always exist, so Tom Hanks will always have work.
For an astronaut – people who dedicate their lives to the most intricate, cerebral and physically demanding profession possible – Tom Hanks plays Jim Lovell as if he’s playing Clark Kent. Just a hapless family man trapped in an unpleasant situation which could be resolved by sheer gumption. In reality, he was an engineer, an intellectual. A scientist. But that doesn’t fit the brand of the American as the plucky survivor.
These sentimentalised roles are either pilloried for their reliance on sumptuous, swelling music played upon the sliding and grasping precipice of the movie’s third act, or they’re decorated for the triumph of the human spirit. Whatever the mission, the hero usually wins out.
Tom Hanks has made a career out of carefully choosing the latter, although when speaking on the film, he said that it “made him cry”. Talking about his role, he claims, “I was on the recording stage for Apollo 13, for James Horner’s recording of the ‘Re-entry into earth sequence’. And I could only listen to it once. Because you hear the live orchestra, and then you see it playing up on the (screen).” To his credit, it’s a stirring song.
He continues, “I could only hear it once because I burst into tears. It was so powerful and so heavy. Later on, you see how also his theme for the launch was filled with majesty and hope and gravitas.” And he’s right. The movie has a good soundtrack, composed by the expertly talented Horner, which rightfully earned him one of the movie’s many Oscar nods.
If you’re personally invested in the American space program, this may be the film for you. It certainly was for many people in 1995, a time of relative optimism about American exceptionalism (at least relative to today) where we celebrated accomplishments and bereaved defeats, not as the vile criminality of empire, but as mistakes and missteps on the way to greatness. And that’s Tom Hanks, in the end, an actor who represents the idea of benevolent stochasticism, the facepaint smeared upon the American project. Whatever that may have been or may become.
