TO THE MOON, JANET!
Movie Review – First Man
Review by Paul Preston
Prepare to go to the moon! Damien Chazelle’s studied telling of Neil Armstrong’s mission to the moon is the plot of First Man. But don’t prepare by strapping into your seat and hanging on for the ride, prepare by expecting a different type of film from Chazelle, known for his high-energy and fast-paced films Whiplash and La La Land.
The good news is that Chazelle is just as adept at handling a more pensive storytelling style as he was when he pulled out all the stops and won the Oscar for directing La La Land in 2017. First Man starts with an exciting sequence as Armstrong is testing the limits of an airplane, pushing the boundaries of our atmosphere. As thrilling as that sequence is, the first glimpse of Armstrong’s personal life flips tones and involves him tending to his sick daughter. Her eventual death (also early in the film) is the moment that seems to spur all of his actions as he has further adventures in space and is primed for Apollo 11.
The key word in Chazelle’s direction and Ryan Gosling’s performance as Neil Armstrong is “underplay”. I thought this film would put us in the space capsule for a wild ride and bring a “will they make it?” tone to a situation where we already know they do. But the production side-steps action movie clichés and goes all in on drama. There’s a lot of brimming emotion in this film. At times, I thought Gosling was almost TOO withdrawn to the point of passive. The film shows us the space race with Russia and NASA’s fatal failed launches, but otherwise there’s no great villain or antagonist for Armstrong to overcome. He needs to overcome his own emotional constraints, perhaps not an outwardly enthralling dramatic adventure, so twist your expectations and mood around and you’ll fall into Chazelle’s vibe.
Claire Foy as Armstrong’s wife Janet brims like the best of them, too, although she gets numerous moments to let loose on Neil or the NASA suits putting him in dangerous situations. Chazelle saves his energy for the launch and flight sequences, which are both exhilarating and disorienting. Every close-up shot of a screw that’s holding the capsule together reminds you of just how much trust one should put into 1960s technology.
There’s a great supporting cast with Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Jason Clarke, Patrick Fugit and Ethan Embry. Although this is the first film of Chazelle’s to not have music as its central subject, he did bring along La La Land composer Justin Hurwitz to churn out an emotional score.
You’ll get to see Armstrong deliver his famous line, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, which garnered applause in the theater where I saw the film. But what other quotes do we have from Neil Armstrong? What do we know about him? First Man doesn’t go the “pull the curtain back and discover the man” route of telling its real-life protagonist’s story, but instead delivers him up as he was – private, exceedingly professional, a man of few words and in some cases, bottled up.
And it all goes back to his daughter. He can’t face his sons before launch because he couldn’t bear them to see the loss he has seen. He reaches for his daughter in his mind to subvert the intense pressure of space travel. And when morons like Marco Rubio blather on in mock outrage about the fact that there’s a scene missing from First Man where the U.S. flag gets planted on the moon’s surface, maybe it’d do Rubio a service to actually SEE the movie before he rants and he’d see that Armstrong is doing all of this, pushing his own limits and jolting his own senses awake, not for the U.S., but for his daughter. A reason that is more compelling in the long run.
Directed by: Damien Chazelle
Release Date: October 12, 2018
Run Time: 141 Minutes
Rated: PG-13
Country: USA
Distributor: Universal Pictures
