First Man

Directed by Damien Chazelle (WhipLash & La La Land), written by Josh Singer (The Post & Spotlight) with Ryan Gosling once again Chazelle’s lead actor; in this he plays the very stoic and reserved first astronaut on the moon, Neil Armstrong.

I suppose technically this is a biopic because it’s based on the official biography of Neil Armstrong by James R. Hansen, but the beats don’t play out like a biopic. It’s more the idea of how this dream, this notion of putting a man on the moon came to fruition; seen through the eyes of Neil Armstrong and his wife Jan (Claire Foy (The Crown) and their children. The film follows them through 9 years at home and at work, getting to know the other NASA astronauts and the inner politics and seeing firsthand the sacrifice and loss – not just seeing it, but feeling it and hearing it, every scene which takes place at NASA or inside a Rocket or in space is so precise and tactile and deliberate. The audience is really a part of every lever, nob, tight space, rattle, shake and motion, you almost feel like you can taste this film.

The scenes at home are the exact opposite, they’re like vignettes, very much like a Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, Knight of Cups) films, only making a lot more sense.

I did wish we would see a young black female face in some of the NASA scenes, not a speaking part, but just in the background representing Katherine Johnson who we now know from the movie Hidden Figures made a significant contribution to the space program, but they don’t go there. Probably because Neil Armstrong didn’t have any dealings with her himself, and the consultant on the movie, Apollo 15 Astronaut Al Worden, said this movie is very true to life. There’s a lot of things he says were ridiculous in Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983) about the early days of the space program. And Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 about the 2nd mission to the moon after Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11. But First Man he said, is pretty much on the nose. Now audiences can argue that’s the trouble. It is a bit long, there’s a couple of false endings and sometimes I was a little bored, but on the whole, it’s another impressive feature for filmmaker Damien Chazelle.

T&T’s Large Association of Movie Blogs (aka the LAMb) rating: 4 outta 5

First Man Allied Philly Universal Studios Entertainment