[A Million Miles Away review Prime] From a Mexican child on a farm chasing dreams to becoming a astronaut!

A Million Miles Away  The Amazon Prime movie based on the biography of Jose Hernandez and his journey from a farmworker to becoming an engineer and astronaut. It tells the story of determination, community, and sacrifice in pursuit of seemingly impossible dreams

A Million Miles Away review Prime

This is an inspirational, dream-building movie based on the real-life story of Jose Hernandez, a Mexican immigrant who came to work in American fields as part of a migrant worker family. After witnessing the live broadcast of the Apollo moon landing by Neil Armstrong. Over the course of more than 30 years, he applied to NASA’s space exploration program 12 times before finally succeeding.

For astronauts, they are primarily white Americans, but he is the first-generation Mexican descendants who came from the laboring class. This means much more than being an astronaut because America itself has the ongoing problem of racial segregation like they do. The most significant obstacle he had to overcome throughout their life was this, starting from their childhood in school where there was only one Chinese teacher who saw potential and became the inspiration that got him to this point. They also had a family that sacrificed to put them through college as the only one out of four siblings. Adela Hernandez (played by Rosa Salazar), their wife, gave up her dream of opening a restaurant to support her husband’s training in deep-sea diving, flying planes, learning Russian, and more after seeing relentless efforts that didn’t bear fruit. This is the turning point in middle-aged life.

The film is imbued with the aroma of Mexico in every aspect, from its cuisine to its way of life, the cars they drive, the dynamics of family relationships, and close friendships. Despite growing up as a farmworker, even after Jose Hernandez graduated as an engineer and started working in a government agency, he never really changed his life. He remained a devoted son and, before getting married, had a home and many children. His life story differs greatly from that of white Americans, but it is rich and deeply immersed in the friendships that have blossomed. These friendships are something that ultimately propelled him to success.

The movie delves quite deeply into the intricacies of the journey to becoming an astronaut, breaking it down into chapters starting from the very inception of the dream and outlining the steps taken to enhance skills. This is especially evident in the part that portrays NASA’s rigorous and incredibly demanding selection process. The scenes depicting life-threatening underwater tests, where it feels like death is imminent, are particularly intense. These moments fall within a chapter where it seems like success has been achieved, only to require even greater efforts thereafter.

Moreover, there’s the obstacle of a rocket explosion in a previous mission, which leads to the suspension of space launches. This becomes a point where the dream he has strived for throughout his life almost seems to be extinguished.

The movie tells the story well and is very engaging, but due to the abundance of details in his life, it often resorts to time-skipping to advance the plot. Interesting childhood moments are quite short, and then it jumps to the adult phase played by Michael Peña , who is 47 years old, making it look somewhat disjointed with the new graduates. However, it uses time-skipping within each life phase to address this, instead of having a separate actor play the younger years, which results in many details being omitted. For example, the struggles in the workplace due to peer pressure are briefly shown, and the period before marriage is entirely skipped. After getting married, they have children quickly, but there is hardly any detail left, only important dialogue scenes. The part where they go to Russia for six months, which could have been an interesting storyline, is also missing. Skill development is hardly shown. This is a point where it seems like this story would have been better as a TV series rather than a movie, as many important details have been omitted.

This is a biographical movie about a Mexican-American astronaut that narrates the struggle against racial prejudice in America from the perspective of white Americans while inspiring dreams. The storytelling is engaging and provides various thought-provoking ideas. Michael Peña delivers a strong performance, although the fact that he portrays the character from youth to middle age alone can make the early parts of the story feel a bit disjointed. The film relies heavily on time-skipping, resulting in the omission of important details, which is regrettable.

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