DIRECTOR: RATING:

D★ ★ ★ ★ amien Chazelle’s glorious and beautiful and alternately operatic and intimate moon- mission film First Man is a master class in how to find dramatic intensity in a story with one of the most well- known endings in the history of human adventure.

Spoiler alert! Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon. This is the story of how he got there, what it took to get him there, and what it felt like once he was there.

From an engrossing, full- throttle, dizzyingly visceral opening sequence in which Armstrong pilots an X- 15 that dances above the Earth’s atmosphere before coming precariously close to fatally spinning out of control; through the geeky, period- piece, procedural interludes; to the sometimes heartbreaking domestic sequences; to the stunning and breathtaking climactic voyage to the moon, First Man achieves authenticity and greatness.

Put it right up there with The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 in the ranks of the best movies ever made about Nasa.

Chazelle reteams with his La La Land leading man Ryan Gosling, whose onscreen persona is perfectly suited to playing Armstrong, who was passionately committed to the space programme and dearly loved his family and had no shortage of self- confidence but was something of a reluctant hero and an elusive public figure.

Sure, Gosling is dashing and has movie star charisma and all that, but he has a natural affinity for playing characters who internalise their feelings, who aren’t big on sharing, who measure their responses before speaking.

And that’s Neil Armstrong.

With the exception of a few well- placed flashbacks, First Man travels a linear path covering the eight- year stretch between 1961 and 1969 when Nasa mounted a determined, almost frenzied campaign to overtake the front- running Soviets and literally plant the American flag on the moon.

Working from a superb screenplay by Josh Singer ( The Post, Spotlight), who adapted James Hansen’s best- selling book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, director Chazelle frequently invokes a hand- held camera, docudramastyle, whether the story is focusing on Armstrong’s home life or the camaraderie/ competition among the astronauts jockeying for position on a rapid progression of Gemini and Apollo missions.

Gosling expertly captures Armstrong’s methodical, straightforward, guarded and sometimes infuriatingly closed- off approach to everything, from problemsolving any and all aspects of getting to the moon to dealing with the horrific deaths of a number of his colleagues to coping with the loss of the Armstrongs’ daughter, Karen, who died of a brain tumour before reaching the age of three.

Claire Foy’s electric, emotionally charged performance as Janet Armstrong provides a vitally important dramatic counterbalance to Gosling’s cool reserve and gives the movie its heart and soul. While Neil is consumed with the mission ( whether he’s at work or working at home), it’s Janet who tends to the everyday needs of their young sons, and it’s Janet who has to keep the family together.

Eyes blazing, Janet demands Neil talk to the boys before he embarks on the historic but tremendously risky mission, and let them know this might be the last time they’ll see him. And she’s even more of a force when she calls out Nasa supervisors for their “We’ve got this under control” line of B. S.

The partial list of brilliant character actors playing key figures from the space race includes Ciaran Hinds as Robert Gilruth, the first director of Nasa’s