The Secret Art of Human Flight (2024)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

The Gift of Lift

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Could H.P. Mendoza be his generation's Howard Hawks? He seems able to work in virtually any genre — the dark holiday family comedy (Bitter Melon), horror (I Am a Ghost), and, of course, the delightful Colma: The Musical — with the same supple, sturdy technique. His movies flow beautifully, and they tend to transcend their genre's inherent shortcomings. On the surface, The Secret Art of Human Flight is partly a fantasy in which a character chooses to pursue something that requires faith, that may not actually be possible. It could have been goopy or ridiculous, but Mendoza gets it exactly right. Not only that, it's a beautifully touching portrait of grief.

Grant Rosenmeyer (who was one of the tracksuited kids in The Royal Tenenbaums) plays Ben Grady. Until recently, he and his wife Sarah (Reina Hardesty) were co-authors of children's books. But Sarah has died, leaving Ben in a stupor, staring into nothingness for hours or days at a time. Gloria (Lucy DeVito) and her husband Tom (Nican Robinson) try to help but can't get through. He discovers a video for a course that teaches one how to fly, offered by the mysterious, guru-like Mealworm (Paul Raci). He orders it from the dark web. Then, Mealworm appears at his door, and the training begins. It consists of sleeping on the roof, learning how to jump really far, and eating only vegetables, followed by eating only meat.

Whether or not Ben learns to fly is, of course, hardly the point. Maggie Grace plays a great character, Wendy, who has also lost a life partner. She listens to him and gives him some good advice: find a thing and see it through. It doesn't matter if it's crazy or dumb or expensive. Just do something. The act of doing is more important than the result. In addition to Wendy, all of the movie's supporting characters work together in perfect harmony. Tom, for example, is hilariously more concerned with Ben's activities on the dark web than he is with his grief. And Raci gives another great performance as a wise mentor — it feels like he's really lived through stuff — not dissimilar to his roles in Sound of Metal and the upcoming Sing Sing.

Mendoza is gifted at balancing quirky humor with the genuine. Ben's grief is at first played for jokes, such as when he spends several days and nights sitting in a lawn chair, lacking the focus or interest to stand up and go back inside. But it's never disrespectful, and it nicely morphs into something more emotional. (A police detective, played by Rosa Arredondo, who suspects that Ben might have had something to do with Sarah's death in order to collect her life insurance, is the only thing that's slightly out of place.) Likewise, the visual scheme is a deft balance of silly and beautiful, like the cotton clouds Ben uses to decorate his living room. By the end of The Secret Art of Human Flight, though, it's hard to come away unmoved. We understand that the "human" in the title is the most important thing.