Film Review: First Man

STUNNING SPACE TRAVEL BIOPIC
Damien Chazelle’s films (La La Land, Whiplash) have always focused on the painful cost of passion. First Man, his enthralling drama about Neil Armstrong’s journey through the 1960s space programme, allows him to show just how high – literally – the stakes can be for obsessed individuals. JFK said of NASA’s moon-landing mission, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Chazelle’s respect for that philosophy is etched all over this movie – though he also recognises the toll. Gosling plays Armstong as a single-minded man who has been left traumatised by the death of both his young daughter, and the numerous colleagues who have died on missions. He is stoic, uneasy around his wife and sons, and only seems to come alive in a spacecraft, pushing himself and the vehicle to the limit.
Eschewing the traditional panoramic views of space in favour of a more experiential, POV approach, Chazelle keeps his shots close and claustrophobic. We see what the astronauts see: the clunky, industrial dials; the slivers of sky glimpsed through tiny windows; and the sky looping and repeating itself as ships hurtle and spin out of control.
And they do, often. Handheld cameras, a juddering soundscape, and violent, dizzying cinematography capture the hurtling physicality of each voyage. On Earth, meanwhile, Armstrong’s wife Jan (an Oscar-worthy Claire Foy) is facing a different battle. Also grappling with loss, she is constantly bracing herself for the news that her husband has become yet another casualty of America’s desire to conquer space – a political mission that had many detractors, as news bulletins of various protests convey.
As Armstrong learns, sometimes ideas of national loyalty collide with personal and parental responsibility, and Chazelle beautifully captures the painful, arduous journey we sometimes take to discover our priorities.