Astronaut Farmer

We enjoyed this movie as a family a few weeks back.

Click here for a description from IMDB.

And here's an excerpt from a review from Megan Basham in World...

...a quiet, thoughtful film that dwells as much on the value of family as it does on the importance of dreams.

After a personal crisis forces him to drop out of NASA's aeronautical program, Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton)...[builds] a shuttle in his barn...Though the dream takes a lot from the Farmer family in time and money, it gives them a lot as well....

In the wrong hands such Rockwellian images could feel saccharine, but thanks to phenomenal performances all around, the casually loving interactions of the Farmer family will ring true to anyone who grew up in a traditional family. And they could very well create a fleeting ache over what might have been for those who didn't...

Farmer's father-in-law (Bruce Dern) is awed not at Farmer's achievement of building a rocket but of building unity in his family. "I couldn't even get my family to sit down for a meal together," the old man sighs, "and you have yours dreaming together."...