First Man (Dir Damien Chazelle, 2h 21m)

 
It is not until the preparations for Apollo 11, and Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) begins to realise he will be one of the first men on the moon that First Man finally finds gear, with the enormity of the event, his mortality, and hopes and fears of his wife, Janet (Claire Foy) providing a emotional challenge alongside the technical and physical challenge of landing on the moon. The film before it is nothing in comparison to the visual splendor, emotional pathos, and cathartic closure of its last third, but this final third is one of the best versions of space exploration on film.

Gosling, and Foy are a strong duo, and much of the emotional centre, when it does pay off, comes from them. Gosling's physical and vocal resemblance to Armstrong, and indeed the film's great attention to detail in making the period feel the part, belies the actor's true strength in the role, of showing an Armstrong emotionally scarred by the death of his daughter from cancer, a man surrounded by the deaths of his fellow astronauts, and both stricken down and stunted by the losses he suffers. This comes to an emotional explosion from Janet as Neil packs, seemingly unable to deal with his own mortality, and admit to his sons that he may never return from the moon, with her finally losing her temper with him, after which Neil finally begins to, mostly through visual, rather than verbal story-telling, begin to deal with his loss, leading to a final moment of closure and catharsis that astonishingly may be just as true as the rest of the film.

Foy for her part brings life to a character comparatively forgotten in the history of lunar exploration, and through her friendship with neighbours whose husbands are also in the space program, a sense of the loss they and their children feel, and their obvious grief at the death of their husbands is conveyed, in a way that a film that focused more on Armstrong on his own would not have captured. However, the film never truly allows Janet to tell her side of the story, or indeed to express her worries and grief, aside from a few scenes at funerals, to indicate that her husband has a problem with expressing his loss, or indeed to cope with it, and aside from a scene where she remonstrates with NASA chiefs to indicate her anger as being unable to listen to the full Mission Control conversations due to security clearance, we never really get a sense of her being angry at the idea of possibly losing her husband in space.

But despite the film's issues with pacing, and indeed of telling its story of Armstrong truly in context of the Space Race, and indeed of the period the moon landing took place in-with a token sequence of "Hey Hey LBJ"ing, Gil Scott Heron (a slightly bizarre cameo by Leon Bridges), and Vietnam protests to remind us that it's the 1960s, as if the period detail was utterly absent-and despite the feeling of parts of the film being rushed...from the moment the mighty Saturn rockets kick in, in a nigh perfect blend of NASA archival footage and film, and the Apollo 11 mission begins.

From here, the film is perfect, with every moment, even though we know the outcome, that Armstrong will stand on the moon, nailbiting, and whilst the film has previously given us an idea of the tremendous power, and indeed danger of space, complete with nigh continuously jittering camera and a death-defying attempt to bring Gemini 8 back under control, nothing comes close to the pure exhilaration, and indeed, the pure power of this sequence, as the lunar module goes into orbit, the lander detaches, and Armstrong finally steps onto the moon.

Chazelle's skill here is to make the very action of a man descending a ladder and stepping out onto the lunar service momentous, and the first person perspective, of Armstrong staring down at his feet, as the bootsoles make their impression in the lunar service, fully capture the gravity of walking on the moon for the first time in history, whilst the intercutting of the sequence with the actual footage is perfectly timed. It is thus oddly perfect that Armstrong's emotional challenges and his technological ones are both resolved, to one point or another, on the lunar surface, with the film essentially ending its lunar exploration at this point of resolution.

Despite its weak opening third and rushed middle, First Man  is both an excellent portrayal of Armstrong, and of his accomplishments, both in space exploration, and of his fears as a husband and father, and, more importantly, of a man dealing with grief.

Rating: Recommended.