In February, 2007 there was this extremely strange story about a female NASA Astronaut, Lisa Novak – who in a fit of jealousy drove across the United States to Orlando Florida to confront her former boyfriend and his new girlfriend. She took many items in her car with her on the cross country trip, including diapers so she would not have to stop, to improve her time for the trip. What is most interesting about this story, diapers aside, is that nobody would expect a highly educated and intelligent Astronaut to do anything insane and irrational like this, that included spraying her former boyfriend with pepper spray. It is well known that NASA Astronaut’s are chosen not only for their high level of intelligence, but also for their ability to stay calm within any extreme situation, making this story from 2007 that much more shocking. The question then is, is this story interesting and strong enough to make a movie about it, 12 years later? Unfortunately the critical consensus is no. There are some good ideas here, including the fact that any human being can crack under extreme stress or work injustice, but there is not enough story here to keep an audience interested for two hours.

“Lucy in the Sky” stars Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm, two very well known and bankable stars who took this movie most likely because they were impressed with the work of director Noah Hawley in the TV Series Fargo, which has been outstanding. Unfortunately, this is one film that should have been made as a documentary produced for Netflix or Amazon and never a major movie release.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Lucy in the Sky are extremely low at 22% and the movie has been released in very few theaters, most likely due to the very low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. My rating is more in the 50% range, agreeing that the movie is not good, but it does not warrant a rating of only 22%. This one should be skipped.