NOW SHOWING

MOVIE: First Man

STARRING: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Patrick Fugit.

RATING: M REVIEWER: Leigh Paatsch

WHILE it remains a mystery as to why Hollywood took so long to tell the story of the first successful expedition to the moon, the wait proves to be well and truly worth it once you have witnessed the wonder of First Man.

First Man approaches our inherent fascination with space from both an unexpected angle, and with breathtaking creative flair.

Though its bravely unorthodox visual style and skeletal storytelling structure are sure to divide viewers in months to come, First Man is still undoubtedly one of the best and most significant movie releases of 2018.

Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle (working in a markedly different mode from his last work La La Land) has definitely shaped a screen spectacle designed to completely enthral audiences. However, he does so with an intimacy and intricacy that normally go undetected on this vast cinematic scale.

The astonishing sequence which opens First Man amounts to a virtual declaration of independence from any other space movie we have seen before.

The year is 1961, and the man destined to leave that fateful first footprint on the lunar surface, Neil Armstrong (played by Ryan Gosling), is piloting an X-15 rocket-powered aircraft.

Far beneath him is the barren expanse of the Mojave Desert. Just outside his window is that unworldly area where the outer reaches of our atmosphere are about to end, and the vast emptiness of space will begin.

The movie charts Armstrong’s eight-year odyssey from the Mojave to the moon with the same intense reserve as the man himself.