First Man (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

First Man (2018) – D. Chazelle

I enjoyed director Damien Chazelle’s last two films (La La Land, 2016; Whiplash, 2014) – he’s a master of film technique.  I also enjoy films that take place in outer space (e.g., Gravity, 2013; but not that one by Ron Howard).  However, First Man is rather grim; it is essentially a biopic of Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) who, if this depiction is accurate, was an exceptionally serious man who kept his emotions bottled up and was distant from his family.  Gosling is solid in the part but it is hard to feel affection for Armstrong (even as he suffers the death of his daughter and many of his astronaut colleagues).  More sympathy is generated for his wife, Janet (Claire Foy), who suffers from his psychological distance and the risks that he is undergoing that threaten to traumatise her kids and destabilise their family.  But hey, this is the Space Race.  Chazelle does try to contextualise the events being shown with shots of protests (set to Gil Scott-Heron’s Whitey’s on the Moon), so it isn’t all awestruck wonder at the achievement.  But there is that too.  Chazelle’s technique carries us along as Buzz and Neil finally arrive on the surface despite some tension-building hiccups.  Hard to imagine how the real thing was accomplished with 50-year-old technology.  In the end, the film avoids being drawn on where we should be today, deciding to leave political questions aside in favour of a more trad biopic focus.  I’m still interested to see where Chazelle’s talent takes him.