More important, the helmer and his actors unaffectedly convey the attitudes of a time when rock ‘n’ roll was the only sort of rebelliousness that small-town authority figures accepted in teenagers.
Not surprisingly, Homer - whose most prized possession is an autographed photo of Wernher von Braun - has other ideas.įrom the get-go, as Johnston tracks the nervous responses of Coalwood residents to news of Sputnik, “October Sky” vividly evokes the mood and ambiance of its ’50s period. He proudly supports his older son, Jim (Scott Miles), who may be able to earn a football scholarship, but expects Homer to join him down in the mines after completing high school. John is a mine supervisor who does his best to ignore telltale signs that Coalwood, like the coal mine itself, is dying.
Miss Riley suggests that they aim for a regional science fair, which might reward them with college scholarships.īut John Hickam (Chris Cooper), Homer’s taciturn father, isn’t at all pleased by the progress of his son’s foolishness. Their first experiment is a disaster, but after Quentin joins their ranks, the self-taught “rocket boys” become increasingly more ambitious. Indeed, he becomes so obsessed that he ignores the scorn of his buddies to befriend Quentin (Chris Owen), a bespectacled social outcast who just happens to be the school’s resident math geek.Įncouraged by a helpful teacher, Miss Riley (Laura Dern), Homer enlists two of his buddies, Roy Lee (William Lee Scott) and O’Dell (Chad Lindberg), to help with construction of a small-scale rocket. Although he is, at best, an indifferent student, Homer begins to read everything he can find about jet propulsion and rocket design. Even in the relatively isolated West Virginia town of Coalwood, there is considerable fretting about the possibility of surveillance - or worse - by a Soviet space probe.īut for high-schooler Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal), Sputnik is cause for inspiration, not trepidation.
Pic begins with newscasts of the October 1957 launch of Sputnik, the satellite that seemed to signal Russia’s technological lead in the Cold War space race.
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