First Man

The opening sequence of Damien Chazelle’s FIRST MAN is absolutely thrilling: test pilot Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) pushes his jet to its limits in an attempt to slip the surly bonds of earth.   Ignoring concerned pleas, he dances at the edge of the atmosphere until his engine dies – craft drifting – as if pulled by the vastness of space itself (never mind the scientific impossibility – jet engines require air to achieve thrust, and the gravitational pull of the earth itself is too great for any craft without thrust to escape).   However, Armstrong is no daredevil Chuck Yeager; his reckless envelope-pushing is merely how he mentally escapes from the turmoil at home.

His sweet, cherub-cheeked toddler, Karen is dying.  Desperate to save her, Neil spends all his free time researching cutting-edge treatments and calling world-renowned specialists.  He tackles everything with a single-minded precision, and compartmentalizes as a coping mechanism.  His emotions are sublimated beneath his calm exterior, an unhealthy habit that doesn’t go unnoticed by his family and friends.  Janet (Claire Foy), his wife, is the bedrock of the household; she does the emotional heavy-lifting for Neil, but how does she process her own grief?  Unfortunately, we are never really given a window into her inner-life outside the context of her husband and children.   Neil’s colleague, Ed White (Jason Clarke), patiently urges him to talk about his trauma, but is consistently rebuked.

From the exhaustive and cut-throat NASA training to the devastating loss of the Apollo 1 crew, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen done before (and arguably better) in either THE RIGHT STUFF or APOLLO 13.  The window we are given into the Armstrong family’s grief is a new angle handled with a surprising lack of dexterity as it slowly careens into sentimentality.

The two leads give competent performances despite Chazelle’s overuse of handheld zooms that often feel out of place in otherwise relaxed, domestic settings.  Gosling has the difficult task of portraying a man all Americans know by name, yet of whom  they remain ignorant on a personal level.  His Neil Armstrong is taciturn, stoic, and without an ounce of ego.  By comparison, Foy’s role allows her to be more emotionally demonstrative (a fiery scene with NASA bigwigs is likely to be her featured “clip” if nominated), even though the film denies her any real exploration beyond the superficial.  Acting aside, FIRST MAN is a better film every time it ventures into the sky, yet taken as a whole, the overall endeavor almost feels superfluous.