Apollo 13: Survival Review – Thrilling Documentary

Peter Middleton’s documentary Apollo 13: Survival is a unique and compelling retelling of the fateful space mission, featuring some fascinating archival footage.

Peter Middleton’s documentary, Apollo 13: Survival, uses archival footage and audio interviews to craft an incredibly authentic, unique and gripping retelling of one of history’s greatest survival stories.

For the unaware, the Apollo 13 space mission was supposed to provide man a third chance to walk on the moon. But after a catastrophic explosion left the crew – Jim Lovell, John Swigert and Fred Haise – essentially stranded in space, rapidly losing oxygen with failing electronic systems, the world watched with bated breath as over the next four days, the crew and the boffins at NASA defied the odds and brought all of three men back to Earth safely.

Middleton’s documentary eschews talking head interviews altogether, relying instead on voice over, still photographs and never-before-seen archival footage to compile a comprehensive and cinematic retelling of the fateful mission. It is incredibly compelling. Interviews with the crew up in the air (or, rather, out in the void of space) and on the ground ensure that almost every single aspect of the mission objectives, what went wrong, what was done to fix it, and why it was undertaken is explained concisely and coherently.

And it isn’t ever dull or droning, as editor Otto Burnham has pieced everything together so seamlessly and cinematically. The lack of sit-down interviews so common within documentaries of this ilk isn’t something that ever feels missing from Middleton’s film. Instead, it captures that heart-in-mouth, edge-of-your seat feeling that must have been experienced all over the world while the rescue mission played out in real time. As the men in the room stare helplessly at their computers and radios as the immortal “problem” is revealed, the viewer is doing the exact same thing despite (presumably) knowing how it all plays out.

Apollo 13: Survival centres the emotional core of this retelling on Jim Lovell and his wife Marilyn, featuring a hose of home movies and still photographs that chronicled their life together as high school sweethearts, husband and wife, and proud parents to four children. It emphasises the personal stakes of the rescue efforts in a way that doesn’t feel overly saccharine or cloyingly sentimental, even if it does mean that Swigert and Haise are somewhat short-changed.

With the documentary, Middleton also highlights the perspective gained from a mission that, while ostensibly a failure, wasn’t necessarily seen as such by those intimately involved. The outcome of Apollo 13 might not have been another two names on the list of ‘people who’ve walked on the moon’, but it was still significant. The Apollo programme inadvertently emphasises the importance of protecting Earth itself, even as the goal was to reach the stars.

Apollo 13: Survival emphasises that when given the chance – and viewed from thousands of miles up above – the human race is capable of incredible compassion and cohesiveness. After all, we are all inhabitants of a – to quote Jim Lovell himself – “grand oasis in the vastness of space”, and we’d do well to remember that.

Apollo 13: Survival will be released globally on Netflix on September 5, 2024. Read our review of Ad Astra!