First Man
If your thing is men in uniform repressing their emotions, then this is the film for you.
We follow the small steps of Neil Armstrong, America’s most reluctant hero, from navy pilot to spacestar, not as an audience but as his co-pilot, gifting you the fuselage and circuit board of his personal life and struggles in this intimate and claustrophobic tour de force.
Champion of micro-acting, Ryan Gosling does a very good impression of an emotionally constipated protagonist, something that he has somewhat turned into an artform following Drive, Only God Forgives and Blade Runner 2049. But here, though there are many angsty exchanges and fist-clenching, he brings an awkwardness, vulnerability and ability to sweat on demand that has undoubtedly rocketed him towards the Oscar shortlist.
First Man is suited to its shiny bronze visor with humanity and boldly chose to pack more character flaws than a Martin McDonagh flick. Critics who might have had a bone to pick about this becoming yet another ‘behind every great man is a great woman’ success story will be pleasantly surprised to see that Neil’s marital life is just as brittle and strained as the way he presents himself to the press is cold and surly.
We are gifted a relationship cast in a myriad of lights and complexities and overshadowed by the death of their daughter Karen. Claire Foy is breath-taking as Janet Armstrong – burdened with Neil’s maddening tantrums and a fear that she’ll never get the “normal life” she craves, she is unafraid to call things as they are and provides the heart and humour of the piece, notably telling the head of NASA that “You’re just a bunch of silly boys making models out of balsa wood!” More than anything, their screen time together is worth it just to see Gosling storm off in a huff to stare sulkily at the moon through a handheld telescope.
This is a film of pieces. Of cells. Life doesn’t present itself in neatly digestible chunks and neither does First Man. Director Damien Chazelle proved with Whiplash that he doesn’t do simple stories or individuals and you will find yourself jumping between characters and their loyalties faster than a cicada on steroids. The movie really is only about the “one small step for man” part of the quote, leaving the global implications and national politics to other film-makers and making this just about the one trajectory of a tiny life in the vacuum of space.
For a space movie to take off from the rest, it has to do something truly out of this world. Whilst Gravity wowed spectators with its sweeping, panoramic tracking-shots, First Man is all about suffocating small spaces and giving its audience agoraphobia. Between First Man and Alfonso Cuarón’s classic, any ideas that we might have of space travel as a smooth ride are firmly crushed. We start the story crammed into a Gemini 8 shuttle with Gosling, complete with unnervingly intimate close-ups, aggressive shaking and the violent screeching of metal on metal. You are placed in the cockpit and made to live every queasy moment of Armstrong’s journey from giddy take-off in Apollo 11 to tense arrival in the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle.
Apparently unsatisfied with having only two masterpieces to his name, Chazelle has swapped his Jazz obsession and dancing shoes for booster rockets and thrusters but still manages to sneak the wry humour of Whiplash and charm of La La Land into this raw and impressionistic space opera. Long-time collaborator Justin Hurwitz’s string orchestra score is haunting and lends the piece an ethereal but unsettling tone that could so easily have devolved into yet another Inception foghorn droning of unease.
First Man is something deceptively simple and far darker than the straight story the trailers pedalled it as – it is a sensitive, rough-hewn and unpolished show-stopper that will leave you more than a little starry-eyed.
8/10
