FIRST MAN: A Beautifully-Directed, Written, and Acted Intimate Look at the Brilliance and Flaws of Neil Armstrong

Genre: Biography, Drama, History

Produced by: Ryan Gosling, Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Damien Chazelle

Directed by: Damien Chazelle

Written by: Josh Singer

Production Company: Universal Pictures

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Patrick Fugit, Ciaran Hinds, Ethan Embry, Shea Whigham, Corey Stoll, Pablo Schreiber  

Runtime: 141 minutes                 

SYNOPSIS: 

Set during the 1960’s, First Man tells the untold story of real-life American hero/astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) leading up to the Moon landing, and how his private human struggle intersects with one of the most revolutionary moments in both American and space exploration history. 

REVIEW: 

Damien Chazelle still has a lot to prove in Hollywood as a director. It is such a strange thing to say about a man who was the youngest Oscar recipient in the Best Director category with La La Land (2016). But, to this day, people closely associate Chazelle with music-related films. He’s had a fair share of non-musical works in the past, all of which as a co-writer, with films like The Last Exorcism Part II (2013) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). Yet, as a director, he will forever be remembered as the man who made the survival horror about jazz (Whiplash (2014)) and the modern-day tribute to 1960’s MGM musicals (La La Land). So, First Man, his second collaboration with actor Ryan Gosling after La La Land, is a curious project for Chazelle.  It’s not only a chance for one of the brightest directorial talents working today to offer a fresh take on the oft-told Neil Armstrong and the Moon landing story, but also a chance for him to show that he’s got more range than just being the director of music-related films. 

Chazelle’s First Man takes a far more personal approach to the space biopic genre. The film still depicts some of the pivotal moments in the Moon landing narrative, like the Gemini programs for instance. However, as a whole, the narrative is much more interested in examining the everyman persona of Neil Armstrong than his “first man on the moon” persona. In other words, First Man is much more interested with the character in the event than the event itself. 

As a Damien Chazelle film, First Man feels both similar and different to his previous directorial efforts.   It is certainly much more subdued if compared to the angrier Whiplash or the cheerful La La Land. Yet, look past the whole musical aspect of Whiplash and La La Land, one might find a clear through line that uniquely connects First Man with his last two directorial efforts through its exploration on dreams, the way one sees dreams as a life-fulfilling thing and how one’s relentless pursuit of his dreams can blur the line between passion and obsession. 

Chazelle uses a real-life American hero in Neil Armstrong as a cinematic example on chasing and eventually achieving one’s dreams and the rewards and consequences that come along with it. First Man’s Neil Armstrong feels in a way like a character that’s cut from the same cloth as Chazelle’s fictional characters from previous films like drum prodigy Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) from Whiplash and jazz pianist Sebastian (also Ryan Gosling) from La La Land. Like Andrew and Sebastian, Neil is very passionate about his craft. Also, like Andrew and Sebastian, its Neil’s obsessive dedication to his craft that marks his rise and fall. 

To the public eye, it is easier to say that Neil Armstrong’s rises outweigh the falls. He eventually went down in the history books as the first man to walk on the moon, and in the process, declared by his country as the all-American hero. Behind the scene though, he’s also losing the thing that matters to him as much, or to a certain extent even more than walking on the moon: his family. 

It’s the bittersweet manner in which the film recounts the most successful chapter in Neil Armstrong’s life that the screenwriter Josh Singer of Spotlight (2015) fame perfectly captures. According to the Armstrong family, Neil views himself as the reluctant hero, and here, his reluctance can be interpreted as both his strength and his weakness. 

On the one hand, his humility can be considered as reluctance to take full credit for the moon landing, evident through the way he describes being a part of the most historic moments in American and space history as “doing his job” and the many times during his space mission where he puts others before himself. On the other, the quiet, almost stoic way he reacts to his surroundings can also be considered as reluctance to engage with the society. Despite being good at his job, despite all the friends he made at work, despite his caring persona, he generally struggles to connect with people on a social level, a side of Neil the film compellingly explores through his deteriorating relationship with his family. 

In subtly and level headedly highlighting the positive and negative of Neil Armstrong’s personality, First Man portrays its all-American hero, through his heroics and personal struggle, as what a human-being in real life is: a flawed individual, without glorifying or vilifying its main subject. 

By then, First Man’s story can only make sense by excluding what is undoubtedly the most iconic image in the Moon landing lore: the planting of the American flag. It was such a controversial creative move that got people talking when the film premiered on Telluride Film Festival on August 31^st, 2018. It even drew interest from the nation’s figures of authority like Florida senator Marco Rubio and U.S. President Donald Trump, who called the exclusion an “Anti-American” act and even going as far as saying that the most American thing to do would be by not watching First Man. Without any disrespect to two of the most important figures in today’s America, they have completely missed the point. 

First Man does acknowledge America’s contribution in the Moon landing, albeit subtly through bits of television footages and magazine covers. Perhaps, to Rubio’s and Trump’s distaste, they would have wished for a much more jingoistic, in-your-face, Michael Bay-esque presentation where half of the movie is cheesy close-ups of the American flag. But, within the context of this film, the Moon landing is not about America’s journey. In fact, including the flag-planting sequence would have distracted the film from its personal, and in a way, universal message. 

It’s in tune with what Neil Armstrong said in 1969 when he first stepped on the moon: “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. First Man celebrates the Moon landing as a human achievement. It celebrates the human’s basic desire to dream big, their unflinching determination to hold onto that dream and fulfill them, and how one can achieve anything when he/she puts his/her heart into it, however impossible it may be. Since it looks at history specifically through the eyes of Neil Armstrong, excluding the flag planting sequence shows the filmmakers’ commitment to keep the story personal. 

First Man features some of the most immersive, realistic space sequences ever put together on film. Damien Chazelle really keeps his promise on making this Neil Armstrong biopic a personal journey, not only on a story standpoint, but also on a visual standpoint. To show the audience the infinite size of the outer space, Chazelle prefers to go small scale by using first person perspective camerawork to depict the astronauts’ glimpses of discovery, as if we’re seeing space through their eyes, particularly through Neil’s eyes. It’s a filmmaking technique that works in its ability to capture that same sense of magic and wonder one gets when they see space while at the same time engage in a way that feels like the audience are in the astronauts’ shoes. 

Other than its first person camerawork, First Man is also the rare occasion where the much-dreaded shaky-cam is put into good use. The shaky-cams become apparent during the space travel sequence, every time the astronauts’ rocket is faced with one malfunction after another. Whereas in other films (usually action movies) shaky-cams can become a distracting gimmick, here it gives the aforementioned sequences that much-needed sense of realism and tension. 

Chazelle wants his direction to reflect the true nature of outer space, especially through characters dealing directly with space travel situation. Being in space should feel like being trapped in a haunted house, where its surroundings are hostile, unpredictable and deceivingly small in spite of its grandness. His direction in the end truly conveys that aspect of dread, anxiety and claustrophobia that goes with space travel through frantic camera movement and, for most parts, its use of a confined setting via a rocket cockpit for thrilling purposes. 

And the shaky-cams would not be as effective without the very element that defines Damien Chazelle’s directorial style: sound design. Clearly, his musical background pays off once more, and to make it the more amazing, this time for a non-musical film. He displays such a precise, meticulous sense of the way sound works, especially the way sound should evoke an emotional response to the audience in films. Here, watching him weave sounds together into scenes is like watching a composer work. He understands that sounds in a film are like a rollercoaster. It’s a smorgasbord of noises, bombastic score, faint bits of sound effects and total silence, spread evenly throughout a film so that they build and build. 

The Moon landing sequence in the third act is a byproduct of Chazelle’s great attention to detail. It is beautiful and suspenseful not just because of the imagery, but also the sound work. For this particular scene, the score is mostly dead silence, with a few sounds like machinery, breathing thrown here and there. Yet, it’s the way the sound people modulate the occasional moments of sound that makes the scene thrill beyond just images. 

But still, even in moments when the sound designers lean towards the more bombastic, noisy sound effects, particularly with the rocket’s metallic rattle, it comes to us with such sheer, hair-raising intensity, enough to cause the theater seats to roar. Based on sound alone, First Man is a kind of cinematic experience that cannot be replicated by sitting in a living room couch. 

Ryan Gosling’s likeness to the real-life Neil Armstrong can be debated, but it is hard to argue that the Canadian actor is tailor-made for this role, oddly enough as the American hero. Gosling’s Oscar roles have often been synonymous with him playing quiet, restrained characters, and since Neil Armstrong’s real-life personality is pretty much quiet and restrained, it is a role that is right at his wheelhouse. 

As a main character in a film, Neil Armstrong might not exactly be the easiest character to relate to. He holds back quite a lot emotionally, except for one scene where he sheds a tear during his daughter’s funeral. But it is Gosling’s grounded, almost inconspicuous performance that helps this emotionless man’s human emotions land much better for the audience. The actor’s stoic, robotic body language reflects the real-life character’s social disconnect, one that is so severe that it estranges his relationship with his loved ones. 

There is this one poignant scene in the film with the whole family sat down at a dinner table, silent, and Neil spends this entire scene explaining to his children about his absence, but struggling to explain them in a way a father should to his children. 

Quite incredibly, in the supporting act, Ryan Gosling’s tour-de-force effort is equally matched by Claire Foy’s. She plays Neil’s first wife Janet Shearon, or within the trope of the space film genre, the astronaut wife character. Foy’s character is the type of character that is often underrepresented in space films.  To those who have been complaining for better representation of the astronaut wife’s character in films, then First Man answers those prayers. 

On the one hand, it helps that the screenplay of this particular space film puts emphasis on the astronaut’s personal life. Throughout the film, the story goes back and forth between Neil’s life and Janet’s life. On the other, Janet Shearon is also such a compelling character because of Foy’s raw, understated, almost Oscar-worthy performance. Don’t be surprised that her impassioned “talk to the children” monologue will make it on the Best Supporting Actress reels come next year. 

For a second, we forget that Janet Shearon is once the wife of Neil Armstrong. For a second, we see Janet as a close-to-home representation of the military wife-type woman having to constantly cope with her husband’s absence. Foy captures the whirlwind of emotions such type of wife has go through, like having to worry about taking care of the children, worry about whether her husband is going to make it out of his duty alive as well as having to sit the children down every time his father is out on duty and be the first person to explain to them what is going on, in the realest way possible. 

If there is any sort of gripe to be had with First Man, then there is a good chance that people who idolizes Buzz Aldrin may come out of the theater, slightly incensed by Corey Stoll’s portrayal. On the one hand, Buzz Aldrin is not the main focus in this film. On the other, it is hard to deny that he is easily the most thinly fleshed-out character when compared to the other supporting acts. Josh Singer manages to give the stoic persona of Neil Armstrong’s stature a great deal of character depth, but he cannot do the same with this version of Buzz Aldrin. 

Obviously, the seeds Singer planted are there to see. Aldrin here acts as a quasi-villain-like presence to Neil Armstrong. When everyone’s on board with Neil’s train of thoughts, he is always the first one to go against him. At the same time, Aldrin’s personality is also the antithesis to Neil’s. Aldrin’s more outspoken, overconfident, I-can-do-things-better-than-you demeanor falls in contrast with Neil’s quieter, reserved, put-others-before-himself demeanor. It could have been an interesting emotional conflict with a better characterization and actor’s interpretation on Buzz’s part. It is just unimaginable that an American hero of Buzz Aldrin’s stature could come off as a school bully-like jerk that enjoys making fun of other people’s misery through Stoll’s performance. 

CONCLUSION: 

Damien Chazelle’s visceral, yet visually breathtaking direction for the space sequences in First Man alone makes it worth the theatrical viewing.  But at its heart is a grounded look at American hero Neil Armstrong, a complex individual who is so consumed by his dreams yet so disconnected from humanity, and how his struggle affects his social and familial relationship, beautifully conveyed through the screenplay’s personal focus and Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy’s subtle, yet effective performances. 

Score: 9/10