Dakota Fanning Continues Star Trek Adventure in Streaming Comedy That Will Make You Cry
By Chris Snellgrove | Published
It's hard to imagine Dakota Fanning in the Star Trek universe (although we'd kill her for a cameo Strange New Worlds). However, we found the next best thing in 2017 with a drama starring Fanning Please stand by. It's the kind of movie that will make you laugh and cry (sometimes at the same time), and now you can stream this epic indie film for free on Tubi, YouTube, and Pluto TV.
A True Star Trek Fix
What is the premise of the film? Dakota Fanning plays an autistic young woman who entertains her days living in a San Francisco group home by tuning into Star Trek, her one true love. Finally, Paramount holds a screenwriting contest, and Fanning's character prepares to send in his massive 450-page Trek script in hopes of winning the $100,000 prize.
When he misses his chance to post it, he decides to deliver the text himself, leading to a Quixotic confrontation that no doubt Mr. Spock would consider it “attractive.”
Please stand by drama in the truest sense of the word, and much of what will make you alternate between laughing and crying comes from Dakota Fanning's powerhouse performance. As a young autistic woman, she is at high risk of fraud and swindling, and the film provides a consistent look at the many dangers she faces when she steps outside the normal confines of her group home.
But the movie finds a lot of humor in his character's love of Star Trek, which leads to occasionally broad comedy scenes (our favorite involves a cop who wins his trust by speaking to him in Klingon).
Exercise Sincerely
Star Trek permeates every film in subtle and obvious ways, and it's hard not to watch Dakota Fanning's mission of choice as her Team Away journey to unfamiliar lands. Like Kirk or Picard before him, he must leave a place where he is safe and knows everyone around him and enter a strange new world full of strange characters and strange situations.
He's not literally going where “no man has gone before,” of course, but he's going there he it's never over, and the film offers a healthy theme that this kind of inner journey is just as effective as the outer.
And speaking as major Star Trek connoisseurs, we were surprised that this love letter movie ended up being a franchise started by Gene Roddenberry. In the hands of a different writer, Dakota Fanning's character could have been a mean-spirited satire of Star Trek fans as intellectuals who understand nothing but their favorite fictional world.
Fortunately, he seems to be an honest and guileless person, and we're left with the idea that it's better to be a pure-hearted fan who doesn't understand the world than to be like the disrespectful petaQs who prey on him.
Dakota Fanning's High-Water Mark
In the hands of director Ben Lewin and screenwriter Michael Golamco, Please stand by it delivers the kind of happy story that makes us smile through our tears.
Critics did not fully know what to think about it: on Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently has a rating of 58 percent from critics, who collectively considered that Dakota Fanning gave enough focus to Star Trek to add new to the usual beats to come. Audiences, on the other hand, have given the film a 70 percent rating, and that number is likely to rise as more fans stream the movie across multiple platforms.
Interestingly, the movie has an obvious connection with Star Trek: Dakota Fanning is joined by Alice Eve, who plays her sister. As you may remember (even if you blocked it, we wouldn't blame you), Eve played Carol Marcus in the JJ Abrams film Star Trek Into Darkness. Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt is also present in this film, and five years after the release of this movie, he played a small role in Trek by lending his voice to an episode of. Picard.
Long story, not too short, Please stand by a great movie full of great characters and headlined by what might be the best performance from Dakota Fanning. It's simultaneously poignant and thrilling, and there's enough focus to keep even the most die-hard Star Trek fans entertained. And if you'd like to experience it yourself, no transporter is needed.
As of this writing, Please stand by streams for free on Tubi, Pluto TV, YouTube, and Fandango Home.
