One area of film that is always a crowd pleaser is that of space travel by astronauts. We've seen a number of them: "2001: A Space Odyssey" '68, "Marooned" '69, "Capricorn One" '77, "The Right Stuff" '83, "Apollo 13" '95, "Moon" '09 plus others--I'm only surprised that there aren't more of them. But considering the fascination, Hollywood felt it was time to produce another in the form of "First Man".
This is the riveting story of NASA's mission to land a man on the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and the years 1961-1969, a visceral, first person account, based on the book by James R. Hansen, the movie will explore the sacrifices and the cost on Armstrong and his wife Janet (Claire Foy) and on the nation of one of the most dangerous missions in history.
The film starts with Armstrong's position as a test pilot with less than effective results back in 1961. He then realizes NASA is looking for astronauts for the Gemini program in which he interviews and lands it as a civilian along with Elliott See (Patrick Fugit). As they grope their way through the program, they do meet and befriend fellow astronaut Edward White (Jason Clarke). Finally, Armstrong's supervisors Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler) and Robert Gilruth (Ciaran Hinds) gives him his own Gemini mission: Gemini 8, only a year after the doomed Gemini 7 mission killing three astronauts including his buddy Edward White. This turns out to be a success--so much so that he, Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) and Mike Collins (Lukas Haas) are given the Apollo 11 mission--the first one to actually land on the moon in 1969.
Others to round out the cast are Pablo Schreiber as Jim Lovell, Christopher Abbott as Dave Scott, Shea Whigham as Gus Grissom, Ethan Embry as Pete Conrad, Olivia Hamilton as Pat White, Edward's wife, Cory Michael Smith as Roger Chaffee and Brady Smith as Butch Butchart.
This was brilliantly directed by Damien Chazelle ("Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench" '09, "Whiplash" '14, "La La Land" '16) plus a short. This filmmaker is as diverse in his material as he is talented. His directing resume isn't exhaustive, however where that lacks, the quality in which he performs is amazing. The emotion he was able to extract from his actors and eye for detail for this period piece was spot on--I actually looked for errors. This only being his fourth film as director, I am very curious of what film he is going to tackle next. It was equally well written by Josh Singer ("The Fifth Estate" '13, "Spotlight" '15, "The Post" '17) plus TV and a video short, based on the book by James R. Hansen. By Singer's very resume, this writer is definitely passionate about message topics, which makes this interesting considering this film doesn't exactly fall into the message category. Although back in 1969, the attempt to travel to the moon was certainly controversial, it still wasn't considered message oriented. Singer's ability to appropriately chronicle the events from 1961-1969 was cohesive and it was riveting. For a 2 hour-21minute running time, this storyline simply sailed right along. Other than the majority of the visual effects seamlessly executed by Double Negative, the real treat here was the use of an IMAX camera which was used for the lunar sequences. It just gave the terrain that much more of an eerie feeling. I remember when the landing on the moon occurred. In fact, the launch was on my birthday, July 16th and then they landed on the moon on July 20th. The event gave one an awesome feeling--it was a whole new thing never done before. And, of course, Armstrong gave his iconic statement when he set foot for the first time on the moon: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
Certainly if you were alive and viewed this event in 1969, you will be able to relive this story again, but even if you are too young, this is a well delineated, historical event chronicled with expertise in the directing, writing and acting categories. Enjoy this gem!
Out of 4 Stars: 4 Rated: PG-13 141mins.
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