Movie Review: A Child’s Life Takes Flight in John Travolta’s Elegant and Boyish "Propeller One-Way Night Coach"
9/12 ForReel Score | 4/5 Stars
John Travolta’s Propeller One-Way Night Coach is a cinematic re-creation of an anecdote that your uncle or grandpa randomly launches into at a family dinner. The kind that stems from an unrelated conversation that briefly mentions a hyperfixation of theirs. At first it’s a bit of an eye roll. “Why does grandpa John really need to tell us this hour-long story about his first trip on an airplane.” However, as you listen, vivid details about both the time period and the storyteller that would’ve never been revealed by probing come into focus. At only 61 minutes long, Propeller is not interested in making a grand statement about the world of aviation in the early 60s. It is firmly rooted in one young boy’s mundane but life affirming experience. A cross country flight may be a footnote in an adult life, but to him, it is the moment in which his small world becomes vast and full of possibilities.
Image courtesy of Apple TV
We meet Jeff (Clark Shotwell) as his mother Helen (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett) learns that she will be able to move from New York to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. They board an overnight flight that will span multiple layovers and different types of planes. Jeff has been an aviation obsessive for all of his short life and is awestruck by seeing the planes he’s only known via books, TV and toys in person. As they fly, they encounter a rotating cast of characters who all leave a larger than life impact on Jeff. It is the first time that he gets to experience an adult setting, and he’s captivated.
Travolta is returning to material he wrote into a children’s book in 1997. His adoration and nostalgia is apparent in every frame of Propeller One-Way Night Coach, especially since he narrates over most of them. Although the film is peppered with dialogue from the ensemble, Travolta’s voice whimsically looms over every pause. This could’ve easily been the twee, self satisfied flourish that would’ve made this insufferable. Travolta does not approach this with a desire for vanity, that’s what his berets are for. It’s a light, sweet delivery of his text that feels as though we are sharing a cup of tea with him. His inherent compassion for these characters allows Propeller to play as an intimate and revealing boomer sense memory piece.
Image courtesy of Apple TV
This wistful cadence becomes especially important once Helen starts to reveal some sharper edges. We learn that she has disdain for “people with accents” because it makes them sound low class. She openly courts men on the various planes in front of her eight year old. She’s delusional. There’s no grand opportunity in sight for her, just a manager friend who said that he “might” get her into a movie. The only way for Propeller not to judge her is to present her though the eyes of the person who loves her most. Someone who would heavily resist reflecting on her behavior even at an older age. This is the exact approach needed for a brief excursion on an airplane that was, in part because he got to share an important moment with his mother, one of the most impactful days of this young boy’s life.
Propeller One-Way Night Coach also acts as a glamorous travelog for those too young to travel in a bygone era of aviation. Every terminal and cabin is vibrant and colorful, as if we’re inside Travolta’s restful reflective dream. The in-flight culture shock is constant. These people are smoking, eating prime rib and chicken cordon bleu and lounging in gigantic seats. Both the large and small jets are country clubs in the sky. We see why Jeff, who wore a suit for the occasion, views this as first step into being a grown up.
If Travolta wanted to spin boyhood tales for the rest of his career, I would welcome it. It’s immensely respectable to see an industry legend make a directorial debut at seventy two that is completely uncompromising in its vision. However, that vision is not brash and operatic. It’s gentle, sweet, and willing to end at the exact point it would start to taxi towards the gate. Downright radical in a landscape where young and ravenous independent filmmakers are all chasing shock and awe.