The Aeronauts (2019)
Directed by Tom Harper
Partly — The Aeronauts is somewhat woke, scoring 52 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
The Aeronauts arrives with the confidence of a studio that has spent forty million dollars to put two attractive people in a wicker basket, and to its credit, the wicker basket delivers.
Consciousness Markers
The film was explicitly criticized for historical revisionism, erasing the real Henry Coxwell — who saved Glaisher's life — in favor of a fictional woman, and relocating the flight from Wolverhampton to London.
The female lead is a wholly invented composite designed to give a woman the hero's journey, and the director explicitly framed the choice around contemporary gender bias in science (citing the Royal Society's 8% female membership).
The film replaces real aeronaut Henry Coxwell with a fictional female protagonist, Amelia Wren, and casts British-Indian actor Himesh Patel in a Victorian-era role — deliberate representational reshuffling of the historical record.
The film carries a mild contemporary message about women in science, but it is delivered through adventure spectacle rather than explicit sermonizing.
A South Asian actor appears in a period role, but the film engages no racial themes or commentary whatsoever.
No LGBTQ+ characters or themes appear anywhere in the balloon voyage or its flashbacks.
The film concerns 19th-century meteorology and weather prediction, not climate change or environmental advocacy.
No economic critique or class-based messaging is present; the antagonists are merely skeptical scientists and thin air.
No body-image or body-acceptance themes are present.
No neurodivergent characters or themes are depicted.
Why it received this score
The Aeronauts arrives with the confidence of a studio that has spent forty million dollars to put two attractive people in a wicker basket, and to its credit, the wicker basket delivers. The storm sequence, the frozen valve, the climb up the outside of the envelope: these are craft goods, assembled with real skill by Tom Harper and his effects team. As a piece of large-format entertainment, it works. As a document of 1862, it has been quietly renovated.
The renovation is the interesting part. Henry Coxwell, the actual aeronaut who flew with James Glaisher, who hauled himself up the ropes at 30,000 feet with frostbitten hands and opened the valve that saved both their lives, has been removed from the story. In his place stands Amelia Wren, a composite of Sophie Blanchard and Margaret Graham and several other women who did fly balloons, but not this one. Harper has defended the swap by citing the Royal Society's membership figures, which is the sort of statistic that sounds like an argument and functions as a permission slip. The result is a hero's journey handed to a woman who never existed, at the expense of a man who did.
Himesh Patel appears as John Trew, a South Asian scientist in Victorian London, and the film never once acknowledges the oddity of this, which is either admirable restraint or complete incuriosity. There is a modest current of contemporary feeling here about women in science, delivered through spectacle instead of speeches, and it mostly stays out of the way. What remains is a handsome, well-built adventure that has decided the historical record was a rough draft in need of a better ending. The balloon is magnificent. The ledger is a little smudged.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
In 1862, daredevil balloon pilot Amelia Wren teams up with pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher to advance human knowledge of the weather and fly higher than anyone in history. While breaking records and advancing scientific discovery, their voyage to the very edge of existence helps the unlikely pair find their place in the world they have left far below them. But they face physical and emotional challenges in the thin air, as the ascent becomes a fight for survival.
Questions about The Aeronauts
Is The Aeronauts woke?
Partly — The Aeronauts is somewhat woke, scoring 52 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Woke-Adjacent.
What makes The Aeronauts woke?
4 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Revisionist History (75), Feminist Agenda (65) and Representation Casting (60). On Revisionist History: The film was explicitly criticized for historical revisionism, erasing the real Henry Coxwell — who saved Glaisher's life — in favor of a fictional woman, and relocating the flight from Wolverhampton to London.
How does The Aeronauts compare to other 2019 movies?
It ranks #31 of the 284 films from 2019 we've scored; their average is 22. The wokest is Black Christmas (79).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.