I was a kid in the 1980s, so of course I was incredibly aware of who Sally Ride was, although I specifically remember being confused that "the first (American) woman in space" was a thing that had literally just happened. But certainly, I don't think the new documentary Sally oversells the magnitude of her profile at the time. She was as big as they say she is.
The film takes us through most of Ride's life, focusing most strongly, and understandably, on the period from the late 1970s through the mid-80s when the woman became an astronaut and eventually went to space. It's told more or less conventionally, with a whole lot of archival footage and audio, plenty of talking head interviews, and some reenactments that are probably unnecessary. We see how extremely driven Ride was, how competitive she could be with her colleagues, and also how she had to make herself appear far more modest than she actually was in order not to "scare" the public with such strength coming from (gasp) a woman. In fact, we see how she and the other women in the space program essentially had to erase their femininity to function in such a male-dominated environment— or, probably more accurately, to save the fragile egos of the men around them. You'll wonder to yourself if any man at the time had ever actually met a woman, given how astonishingly ignorant the men seem to be of anything woman-related. When Ride is headed to space, NASA considers sending about 100 tampons with her for a week-long trip.
The film moves briskly, but it's not all business—we also hear directly from the woman who was Ride's romantic partner for 27 years, and about how difficult it was for Ride to acknowledge that relationship in any public way, which she never did. It's as heartbreaking as you might think, that two people who loved each other couldn't let the world know about it, or, at least, Ride thought they couldn’t. But, of course, we know their story is hardly unique in that regard. Not that that makes it any easier.
Sally is on Hulu and Disney+.
