For earth to sprout life, a considerable number of precise conditions needed to be met. The survival of the passengers of US Airways Flight 1549 is a bit like that too, as Sully shows. Following a bird strike that causes the loss of the plane’s engines, everything that could potentially go wrong… doesn’t. It’s a film for the optimist. Walking out of the theatre, I experienced the viewer equivalent of a face stuffed with cotton candy. In that sense, Sully acted as the antidote for the wounds I’ve long harboured from experiencing the gut-wrenching United 93. It’s the other side of the coin.
The film recounts the US 1549 emergency landing on the Hudson River — not in, as the First Officer Jefferey Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) cheekily points out — and the ensuing investigation. Sully’s not so much about the crash (though you get to see it in IMAX grandeur at least thrice); it is about the little-known details of the investigation launched into finding out if Captain Sully Sullenberger (Tom Hanks in top form) could have done better. The filmis full of such delicious ironies. The Captain has saved 155 lives, but could he have saved them without damage to the aircraft—a fact that is of great interest to the insurance company? Could he have avoided risking their lives in the first place? Captain Sully may have emerged triumphant against the Canadian geese, and the Hudson, but can his human frailties overcome the cold computer simulations that seem to suggest that his choice wasn’t the best under the circumstances? What about the irony of being regarded as a national hero, even as an internal investigation threatens to countermine the achievements of a 40-year-old career? In Sully’s own words, “I’ve flown millions during the 40 years of my career. But I’m going to be judged on 208 seconds.” Is Sully “a hero or a fraud?” A question that haunts his nightmares.
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