ON. SCREEN
EVERY SIGNIFICANT FILM AND TV SHOW REVIEWED
DIRECTOR Damien Chazelle CAST Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll
PLOT The true story of Neil Armstrong, a quiet engineer who rose through the ranks of NASA’S 1960s space programme to become the first man on the moon
— a journey that included professional and personal tragedies. DAMIEN CHAZELLE SEEMS to be obsessed with obsession. His latest film, First Man, is a study of it — what it takes to achieve something that seems impossible, and the compromises required to do so. In that respect, it’s not a million light years from Whiplash and La La Land, Chazelle’s first two films (minus the drum solos and dance numbers). What’s notable is the upsurge in his cinematic ambition. A thunderous opening sequence sees Neil Armstrong (Gosling) as a young test pilot in 1962, catapulting solo into space, having “slipped the surly bonds of Earth”, as ‘High Flight’, the poem quoted in the film, puts it. Immediately, we’re awestruck.
This is a giant leap — a hugely impressive evolution for a filmmaker who is startlingly still only 33, which suggests he can turn to (and master) any style of filmmaking he chooses. Reflecting both the man and the mission it depicts, First Man is serious and somewhat dour. The colours are considered and subdued; the pace is studied and sometimes slow; and for the most part, the music is all in the sound design, the cold, ungodly rumble and clatter of metal against the indifference of space. Composer Justin Hurwitz — up until now, Chazelle’s most important regular collaborator — has largely been muzzled, at least until the more triumphant third act, when (spoiler!) Armstrong successfully lands on the moon, and the cinematic scope finally widens.
There’s still tension in that grand finale, but perhaps realising that this is the part of the story we all know, Chazelle chooses not to linger too long. Spanning most of a decade, the film concentrates on the marathon rather than the finish line; arguably the film’s most thrilling sequence comes halfway through with the 1966 Gemini 8 mission, which tested the docking sequence eventually used for the Apollo 11. Urgent, intense and exhilarating, Chazelle’s camera never leaves the claustrophobic cockpit, and often stays in Armstrong’s helmet; the result will leave you a sweaty mess, any presumed certainties that you know how it ends sent promptly out the airlock. As with Interstellar, green-screens were shunned during filming, and the practical physicalities the filmmakers have strained to achieve makes it as immersive for us as it apparently did for the actors. If there was CGI used (and how could there not be?), it’s not clear where; this feels real.
And yet it’s fascinatingly intimate. For all its imposing canvas, Chazelle clings to his lead like a limpet, and until that broad-brushed curtain-closer, maintains his attention on Neil Armstrong, the man. It’s not bogged down in rocket science, with little time wasted trying to over-explain astrodynamics or hypergolic propellants. Instead, it’s lean and specific, keen to understand the pressures Armstrong and his family faced from the mortal threat of his job. Death constantly looms; as he watches
multiple colleagues die from their efforts, Armstrong continually mourns the death of his two-year-old daughter from cancer, a memory that haunts him throughout his mission.
In these moments, it’s clear that Gosling, with his stiff Buster Keatonesque features, fits sublimely into this maths nerd. Armstrong had a better handle on equations than emotions, and Gosling offers us a restrained, largely internal performance. One remarkable scene sees Armstrong attempt to explain to his sons the risks and dangers of the mission, answering their questions with the same stiff, stage-managed, statistics-based precision he’d previously volunteered at a press conference.
It’s left to Claire Foy, as his overburdened wife Janet, to ultimately carry the soul of the story. The Worried Wife is so easily and so frequently a cliché, but Josh Singer’s script allows for real agency and insight into the sacrifices this woman underwent. He’s the star, but she’s the hero.
It’s the emphasis on family that gives the film its heart. In fact, there’s more than a hint of the Steven Spielberg in this story of a family straining under extraordinary circumstances; it’s perhaps not a coincidence that Spielberg is credited as an executive producer here. It’s impossible to fault the craft, conviction and courage of this storytelling, which finds the humanity in overplayed newsreel footage. Chazelle’s obsession with obsession, and his obsessive methods in bringing it all to life, continues to reach for the stars, and gets there, too.
VERDICT Astonishing. The definitive take on a monumental moment in human history. But where it really flies is in never losing sight of the man underneath the visor.