When you hear that Hollywood is
making a biopic about Neil Armstrong, you’d be forgiven for assuming that it’s
about the actual Moon landing. And while First Man is about that in the technical sense, it isn't the main
focus. Knowing that, you're probably asking what else it could possibly be
about. Well, the journey here isn't so much physical and literal as it is
emotional and metaphorical. Director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land) emphasizes the sacrifices
and the mental determination required to make such a grand mission possible,
and what kind of person it would take to undergo such an enormous task.
Our story follows Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) over the course
of eight years, from his days as of risking his life as a test pilot to making
the most famous footstep in history. Shortly after losing his daughter to
cancer, the stoic astronaut is recruited by NASA for “Project Gemini”, America’s
attempt to beat Russia in the Space Race by going to the Moon. While overcoming
his grief, Neil also feels guilt for the men who die during the experiments and
must reconcile the effect this mission has on his wife (Claire Foy) and kids.
The biggest challenge that a movie from the perspective of
Neil Armstrong is, well, getting into the perspective of Neil Armstrong. The
iconic astronaut was a notoriously stoic and private person, so much so that
even his own peers had a hard time getting a read on him. Where past movies
have tried to counteract this by making him a foil to his more tactless, boisterous
partner Buzz Aldrin (here played by Corey Stoll) or making him some robotic,
enigmatic figure, First Man attempts
to work around this by making the moonshot a penance for losing his daughter to
cancer, running parallels where his commitment to science and technology couldn’t
save her, but it could move humanity forward in other ways. While not at the
forefront, it also hints that having breached Earth’s atmosphere, seen the
curvature of the planet and narrowly escaped death in the vacuum of space
multiple times has given him a new outlook on the absolute vastness of life and
the universe.
In that respect, Ryan Gosling is the most perfect casting
choice. He’s always been a master of not emoting but not not emoting, which is why some of his best roles have been ones
that use this to their full advantage like Drive
or Blade Runner 2049, and nailing
that kind of restrain is required when playing someone like Armstrong. (I can
easily see him becoming a sort of “Master of Manly Feels” in the vein Sam
Elliott or Jeff Bridges when he gets older.) Where he carries his emotional
baggage with quiet grace, Claire Foy does the same, but is more open about her
feelings than her husband, and isn’t afraid to get into NASA’s face about their
failings. She’s proven to be a real chameleon of an actress and here she gives
gravitas to an otherwise thankless role. There’s an especially powerful moment the
night before launch where he tries to pack up without saying goodbye, and she
essentially forces him to sit their children down and explain to them that there’s
a good chance he won’t be coming back. The rest of the cast is rounded out by a
murderer’s row of modern character actors who look like dudes from the 60’s
like Kyle Chandler, Pablo Schreiber, Ciaran Hinds and Shea Wingham, but aside
from Corey Stoll as Buzz Aldrin, most of them aren’t fully fleshed out, or get
killed off before they get a chance to be.
On the technical side, it starts off really frustrating.
Most of the film is shot almost like a documentary, so a lot of shaky handheld
cameras are used, which is perfect for when they’re in rockets going through
turbulence, but become incredibly distracting when they’re on ground, not helped
by the deliberate slow pacing of the first two acts. It becomes especially noticeable
after the space scenes where the cinematography and camera-work receive a
massive upgrade, switching from 35 to 65 mm and moving with more fluidity.
While Armstrong didn’t exactly treat stepping on the Moon like a big deal and
the story in turns treats the landing as more of means to an end, they still making
getting to that final destination a cathartic experience, capturing the pure
majesty of the lunar surface.
While I wasn’t exactly over the moon for this one, First Man is still a finely crafted
character study, even if it took me a while to figure out exactly what it was
going for. Like its subject matter, it underplays its massive accomplishments,
emphasizing to emotional journey over the physical. I can see high school
science teachers showing their students this alongside The Right Stuff, Apollo 13 and
Hidden Figures. Sometimes it feels too remote and detached for its own good, and while there may have been some turbulence upon launch, but it
makes a safe landing.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment