Here’s a sentence you haven’t read in a while: John Travolta has made a masterpiece.
For 10 years — longer, if you don’t count his mesmerizing 2016 performance as Robert Shaprio in “American Crime Story” — one of cinema’s greatest living stars has been floundering in mindless, C-tier action films, playing Santa Claus in Capitol One ads, and making cameos in music videos with his good friend, Pitbull. To see Travolta’s latest films on your screen, you’d have to scroll into the dead zone of a streamer’s catalogue. There, you’d find a handful of selections where one of the last century’s most bankable faces resorts to playing a gun-toting sheriff or a gun-toting thief, often directed by the ex-boyfriend of a “Vanderpump Rules” star. Travolta’s recent output is a far cry from the days of “Pulp Fiction,” “Blow Out,” “Face/Off,” or any of the other two-word titles that proved the actor was more than just a high school greaser or disco dancer. (Though if his last great film role ended up being his Divine-channeling Edna Turnblad in 2007’s “Hairspray,” there would be no complaints from me.)
But one can’t exactly fault Travolta for wanting to keep a low profile, considering that the last two decades have been mired in personal strife for the actor. Travolta lost his teenage son, Jett, to complications from a seizure in 2009, and his wife, Kelly Preston, to breast cancer in 2020. Two years later, Travolta’s close friend and “Grease” co-star, Olivia Newton-John, died after her own lengthy battle with breast cancer. In a tribute following Newton-John’s death, Travolta wrote, “We will see you down the road, and we will all be together again.” Phrasing this homage with “we,” and not “I,” is telling. Travolta’s perspective on life and death seems collective, almost optimistic, as if dying is merely a long-haul journey between this existence and the next, with everyone he’s loved and lost waiting there with open arms.
(Apple TV) Clark Shotwell and Kelly Eviston-Quinnett in “Propeller One-Way Night Coach”
“Propeller One-Way Night Coach” is as earnest as they come, more candid than any memoir and more interesting than any biopic. Here, Travolta excavates truth from fiction, and fiction from truth; in his eyes, reality is manufactured with a sprinkle of both. There’s no harm in a bit of rosy romanticization if it makes a life obscured by grief that much lighter.
The sentiment of wistful camaraderie bleeds into Travolta’s tremendous directorial debut, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” — a film that, in its nimble 61-minute runtime, manages to traverse the massive emotional scope of life and death without breaking a sweat. Based on his 1997 children’s novella, this economical piece of autofiction chronicles a life-changing cross-country flight in 1962 from Travolta’s childhood home in New Jersey to the sunny streets of Los Angeles. Along the way, Travolta’s stand-in, eight-year-old Jeff (Clark Shotwell), and his mother, Helen (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett), booze and schmooze with a colorful cast of characters, each offering a kernel of wisdom or a life lesson for Jeff to take with him once he deplanes.
Given that it’s written, directed and narrated by Travolta — and that it involves the three things he loves most in this life: family, flying and film — “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” boasts more subtext than the average actor’s feature debut. The film is a highly personal meditation on the intersection of his passions and how each one has proven itself a guiding force in his life. It also happens to be a hyper-stylized tribute to a bygone era of aviation, when flying was synonymous with elegance, and the impact something so grand can have on a child with a predilection for wide-eyed wonder. The combination of thematic sincerity and confident visual sophistication makes for a strangely disarming, almost lyrical experience, closer to a poem than a film — a feeling amplified by the movie’s brisk length. But if you can get on its wavelength, there’s a mollifying charm to Travolta’s debut. “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” is as earnest as they come, more candid than any memoir and more interesting than any biopic. Here, Travolta excavates truth from fiction, and fiction from truth; in his eyes, reality is manufactured with a sprinkle of both. There’s no harm in a bit of rosy romanticization if it makes a life obscured by grief that much lighter.
With a jazzy score fixed atop its ’60s-era mod-cartoon opening sequence, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” makes no effort to disguise its pastiche. Feeling is more powerful than fact here, and Travolta leans hard into the dreamy, futuristic visual identity of the jet set age to evoke a childlike sense of awe in the viewer. The soft halogen glow of a car’s headlights pulling up to New York’s TWA airport — a well-preserved location frequently used in film and television, worthy of this affectionate close-up; the sight of a late-December snowfall floating down among the planes taxiing on the runways; the winter wind caressing Helen’s fur-trim coat, a lucky find from a recent church basement sale. Travolta’s directorial language is lovingly detailed, and his penchant for picturesque detail creates a leisurely atmosphere, like getting lost wandering around a happy memory.
The rest of the film functions similarly, consisting of the notable highs and lows that would make up a young boy’s recollection of his first time flying: the peculiar in-flight meals, the stray glimpses of his mother flirting with a dashing passenger across the aisle, the stewardess’ (played by Travolta’s daughter, Ella Bleu) kind smile. Everything about air travel is novel to Jeff, and Travolta masterfully conveys the overwhelming excitement of realizing that you’re experiencing your life’s passion firsthand.
Because Jeff and Helen don’t have enough money to take a jet from New Jersey to California, they end up on the “milk run,” a series of shorter commuter flights on the same plane, making stops at various hubs along the way. What seems like an exhausting prospect by today’s travel standards is fondly remembered as a premium experience, the opportunity to see the world without being crammed into rows of seats with no legroom, forced to listen to a cacophony of crying babies and vertical videos from a seatmate without headphones.
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Helen’s on her way to Los Angeles, looking for her big break after years of stage acting and a handful of film roles as a background extra. She puts on an actor’s airs and walks with a distinguished posture, proud of herself and her son, even if it’s an illusion. Her temperament rubs off on Jeff, who tells other passengers and pilots that his mother is traveling to California for a big movie role. The names Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor only hold so much sway. But when Jeff fibs and says that Helen’s going to be in a new Paul Newman film, eyes light up. The glamor of air travel’s golden age mingles with the glow of Hollywood. This is exactly how a movie star like Travolta gets made.
Remembering this time they shared, Travolta works through the memories of his mother, and reconciles the good with the not-so-great. Forgiveness is posthumously granted through cinema, shaving away anything unpleasant that is no longer necessary to dwell on.
But as warm and fuzzy as his ruminations on aeronautics are, Travolta’s nostalgic eye is best served by his intimate character writing. Early reviews out of Cannes, where the film premiered — and where Travolta debuted his latest fixation: old-school directors’ berets — were critical of the film’s stilted portrayals, claiming that they felt alien and unlike human behavior. And while there is a distinct artificiality to just about every aspect of the film’s structure, that affectation is what makes “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” so special. Travolta wants to see and remember humanity at its best. In his mind, there are surprises around every corner. Strangers look out for each other. Caring comes naturally. That his hopefulness reads as synthetic or unrealistic is a broader indictment of how cruel the world has become, and how quickly we’ve accepted casual coldness as the norm.
But this is only a memory — a child’s version of an experience, filmed with all of the bright colors and simple setups of an illustration in a storybook. Travolta’s narration hints at the realizations that come later, when age and education help shine new light onto the shadowy parts of the past. It’s implied that Helen isn’t the most responsible mother, but there’s never a question of how deeply she loves her son. Remembering this time they shared, Travolta works through the memories of his mother, and reconciles the good with the not-so-great. Forgiveness is posthumously granted through cinema, shaving away anything unpleasant that is no longer necessary to dwell on. His mother planned every detail of those very first, life-changing flights with her son in mind, and that gift is one formative enough to last an eternity. As the first plane in their journey ascends, Travolta’s distinct voice no longer feels like he’s narrating for a character. “My mother looked straight ahead, and then she turned and smiled at me,” he says. “I’ll always remember my mother that way.”
(Apple TV) Kelly Eviston-Quinnett and Clark Shotwell in “Propeller One-Way Night Coach”
At the risk of sounding foolish — this is an hour-long, family-friendly streaming film after all — Travolta’s debut is a remarkable insight into an artist’s psyche. “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” is a winning reminder that cinema is not always about the stories themselves so much as it is the people telling them. Like Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” before it, the film works best when viewed as a retrospective analysis of an entertainer’s life, and how easily cynicism can poison a child’s boundless imagination. There’s no room for negativity here. And while that relentless sanguinity might be unrealistic, it’s perfect for a film that ostensibly exists as the definitive last word in a legacy.
“For years, no matter what negative experience I might have, from the time I would leave for the airport until the time I would arrive at my destination, life would seem safe, and I would be happy,” Travolta narrates as Jeff, early in the film. Nearly an hour later, after a semi-fictionalized update on where everyone in the movie is now, Travolta drops the character. “It’s been a wonderful life,” he admits, as if to say that, if this is the last film he ever does, it will be the most personal thing he’s ever made. But just before the credits roll comes a tribute: “This film is dedicated to Kelly, Jett, Ben and Ella, my mother and father, my brothers and sisters, all of whom are my life’s inspiration.” For Travolta, family isn’t just what makes life worth living; they’re what makes it worth remembering. And it’s that type of generous, big-hearted love that makes the time between when we say goodbye and when we see each other again a little bit easier to bear.
“Propeller One-Way Night Coach” is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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