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| Ryan Gosling in First Man. Image courtesy Universal Pictures. |
The
driving force of First
Man
isn't the figure at the center of the movie. The biography of the
first man to step foot on the moon is a justification for the
filmmakers to take the audience through a visually stunning journey
into space. It's a dream and an example of wish fulfillment, the hope
of achieving something beyond the realm of a possibility for eons.
That the man who actually took those first steps is otherwise
unspectacular proves one of the points of the film; dreams don't
belong to the most talented, but to the dreamers with drive and
tenacity.
First Man
provides a snapshot of the life of Neil Armstrong, the eponymous
American astronaut played by Canadian Ryan Gosling. The movie opens
with Armstrong working as a test pilot in 1961, living a quiet life
with his wife Janet (Claire Foy) and children. After the death of
their daughter Karen, Neil applies to work as a pilot on the Gemini
program, the precursor to the Apollo missions to reach the moon. The
ensuing years up to 1969 are a series of trial and errors for NASA
and the multitude of scientists and pilots (played by a collection of
character actors like Ciarán
Hinds, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Lukas Haas, Jason Clarke, Ethan
Embry) who put their lives at risk to get to the moon.
There is a soupcon
of jingoism inherent in that description, a sense of American
exceptionalism director Damien Chazelle and writer Josh Singer
grapple with throughout the film. Some of the issue is just the
setting, as it seems highly difficult to make a movie about the 1960s
without associating it with some levels of idealism and hope.
Chazelle and Singer try to cut through it by tossing references to
protests against NASA and the space program on the outskirts, which
don't succeed at tempering the accidental patriotism but do add a
political action this movie didn't intend to have. To avoid being too
dangerously patriotic, the filmmakers teased a part of their history
that should have been either directly approached or ignored for the
sake of storytelling.
Then again, the film
is not really about how man landed on the film. Based on the title,
it would appear First Man
is about Armstrong and his heroics, about what it takes to launch
oneself into orbit. Yet the movie doesn't delve much into Armstrong
because Armstrong doesn't really delve into himself. As written by
Singer and played by Gosling, Armstrong isn't a traditional
square-chinned patriot or some mythical being. Rather, he's stoic and
reserved, hiding his true thoughts and concerns inside of himself.
Armstrong is taciturn (a trait Gosling has perfected at portraying)
whose greatest strength as a pilot and greatest weakness as a human
is detachment and an otherworldly cool. The depiction is something of
a mixed bag. It keeps Armstrong grounded as a person, evading some
ugly hero worshiping that has dinged other biopics and resulting in
an interesting character because of the silence. If Armstrong is
heroic, it's because of his actions, not his personality. The problem
arises because the stoicism reflects against Janet, who is not
fleshed out enough as a character to fully combat Armstrong's quiet.
Janet instead is something of a trope, the supportive wife who has
that one moment of verve before returning to her station, safe in the
thought that she at least did something. Chazelle and Singer do offer
her a decent amount of solo time, but they don't use it particularly
well to build up her character.
This would be more
of an issue if First Man
was really about Armstrong. It is nominally about the man, but the
point is less that Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon, but
there was a person there at all. Armstrong is necessary because he
was the first, but Chazelle and Singer are far more interested in
bring audiences up to the moon with him. Armstrong himself is
effectively a vessel to get to the stars, a justification for
Chazelle and cinematographer Linus Sandgren to take audiences to
space. The trips to space veer wildly from sublime peace to pure
horror when the danger lights start up and the sounds of imminent
failure start blaring across the rickety hunks of metal thrown into
space. But the best moment is the landing on the moon and the first
steps on the surface, when the film and the audience are stunned into
silence, caught up by the majesty of the moment.
Review: Four and a half out of
Five Stars
Click here to see the trailer.
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 141 minutes
Genre: Biography
tl;dr
What
Worked: Cinematography,
Acting, Pacing
What
Fell Short: Incomplete
characterization for Janet Armstrong, political commentary
What
To As Well:
From
the Earth to the Moon, Apollo 13
