By Brian Viner WE HAVE LIFT-OFF!
A nailbiting mix of dazzling effects and raw emotion should blast Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk to an Oscar
First Man, the captivating story of how, in the famous summer of ’69, astronaut Neil Armstrong came to make that ‘one small step’ into the history books, was given the honour of opening the Venice Film Festival a few weeks ago.
i reviewed it more briefly then, and was interested afterwards to read some of the numerous online comments. Predictably, the conspiracy theorists had their say, those who adhere to the delusion that the moon landings were a gigantic hoax, mocked up in a tV studio.
On twitter, in a reference to the film director said by some to have masterminded the whole devious episode, i was asked: ‘Who plays stanley Kubrick?’
More surprisingly, a number of other readers pointed to Armstrong’s foibles as a man. some suggested that he was boring, introverted, difficult, and thus an unworthy subject for a biopic.
Well, one of the many great triumphs of Damien Chazelle’s wonderful movie, and ryan Gosling’s perfectly judged lead performance, is that it actually makes virtues of Armstrong’s moodiness and introspection. But Chazelle overcomes an even greater challenge. After all, everyone knows how this story ends. Few quotations have a greater claim to immortality than ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’.
so it is marvellous to report that First Man, based on an acclaimed 2005 biography, actually unfolds as a captivating and suspenseful thriller, which is given a powerful whoosh of added poignancy by the story of Armstrong’s family life. Early in his career, he and his wife Janet (superbly played by Claire Foy) lost a two-year- old daughter, Karen, to a brain tumour.
it is that personal tragedy, at least according to Chazelle and screenwriter Josh singer, which accounts for a great deal of Armstrong’s emotional constipation, and indeed for one of First Man’s most poignant moments.
THE executive producer, i might add, is one steven spielberg, who never knowingly endorses a onetissue moment when he can get us reaching for the full pack of triple-ply Kleenex. But here the sentimentality is kept in check.
Nonetheless, it is a hugely moving film. And in what is essentially an account of a remarkable, epochmaking triumph, death looms terribly large. Not just that of Karen, but also of several of Armstrong’s fellow pilots and astronauts.
had three of them not perished in a fire while preparing for a mission in 1967 — a disaster counterpointed with Armstrong’s visit to the White house to convince dissenting politicians that the expense of the space programme was worthwhile — he probably wouldn’t have been the first man on the moon.
some families paid a catastrophic price for victory in the so- called