First Man

There's a famous old urban legend that says after stepping foot on the moon, the second line spoken by Neil Armstrong after his first famous one was "Good luck Mr Gorsky." Supposedly as a child he overhead his neighbours the Gorsky's talking and heard the husband asking his wife to perform a certain "act". The wife's laughing reply was "Sure, when that Armstrong kid walks on the moon!" No reference is made to this in First Man but it might have added a sorely needed dab of humanity to a fairly cold film.

First Man is the story of Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) who on the 20th of July 1969 became the first man to ever walk on the moon. We first meet him during his North American X-15 hypersonic flight where he grazed the edge of space and we follow him through the next 8 years of his life, a journey that consisted of tragedy, hard work, the Gemini missions, family strife, death defying journeys, the Apollo missions and finally one of mankind's most iconic moments.

I really really wanted to like this. Director Damien Chazelle's last two films were absolute winners and I assumed he'd hit a hat-trick no hassle at all. But it was just too cold for me. I couldn't warm to anyone. And by anyone I mean Neil Armstrong because every other character is barely there. The film is about him and his achievements but everyone else could have been sketched out on the back of a matchbox. Gosling as always does well but supposedly this is just how Armstrong was. Going to the moon is great but it's not a personality. Chazelle then doubles down and seemingly shoots the entire film in close up meaning we get the spend the vast majority of the time studying a character who's hard to like. It's a very intimate look at an epic story and I wish he'd pulled back the camera a lot more than he does. The film finally goes wide at the end but it's too little too late.

That said a lot of the film works. Seeing the training the astronauts have to go through would stress you out and the sheer ramshackle nature of some of the equipment used but them is terrifyingly portrayed. These men went into the sky in machines with less computing power than the device you're reading this review on and in ships just barely held together. The climactic moments are pretty awe inspiring too and hearing those famous lines like "The Eagle has landed" is affecting. There's just something amazing about the idea of breaking free of the restraints of earth and heading into the unknown. An early successful moment and the subsequent unsuccessful moments during Armstrong's first Gemini mission are very well done and it's no spoiler to say that the scenes on the moon are cool as hell but it's just a pity that it's so hard to care about the bloke in the middle of it all. 

If a film is going to have a blank canvass for a lead then it damn well better have a cracking supporting cast. Well that's how it should work anyway. The cast is fine and a very impressive one including Ciaran Hinds, Kyle Chandler (brilliantly likable actor, would be a massive star in a just world), Corey Stoll, Jason Clarke, Lukas Haas and Claire Foy amongst others. But they don't get anything interesting to do. Claire Foy plays Janet, Neil's wife, a woman with seemingly no personality, who only exists to worry and be another source of stress for Neil. It's a painfully underwritten part but it's not as bad as poor Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) and Michael Collins (Lukas Haas), the other two astronauts who accompanied Armstrong to the moon. One talks a bit too much and the other likes to sip orange juice slowly. But hey, they weren't the first man on the moon so who cares right...?

I actually liked this slightly more than this review makes out but the negatives do outweigh the positives. You get the feeling that broadening the scope to take the other characters into account a bit more could have done wonders for it all. Maybe turn it into a quasi - continuation of the magnificent 1983 film The Right Stuff. A far warmer and way more humane film about the American space program than this. 35 years old and a film people still have fond memories of. I'll be very surprised if anyone remembers this film in 35 years time.