Review of First Man (2018) by Definitelymayb — 11 Oct 2018

As a massive fan of Damien Chazelle's previous works ie Whiplash and La La Land, First Man is, unfortunately, his first dud and a massive disappointment. The issue with First Man is that it overall has a pretty tame direction, and a story that really doesn't spring to life despite the remarkable achievement of its main hero. That hero, of course, is Neil Armstrong, played very well by Ryan Gosling, but is so devoid of life and lacks any substantial relationships that make First Man an overall tired pointless films that does very little with the material that is on offer. Whilst Chazelle does manage to make a lot of the action very tense and helps deliver strong performances by Gosling and Claire Foy, the amount of negatives outweigh the film as a whole. For example, the film begins with plentiful amounts of shaky cam and extreme close-ups that make the film very disorientating. Whilst this technique is great during the action scenes where we feel the vulnerability of the astronaut's craft, it makes little sense during the domestic scenes where the film just decides to focus on the faces of the characters most of the time. Another problem is that the plot of the film documents the time between 1961 to the first apollo mission, but little character and relationships are developed during the time, making it a snore for most of the time. The film could have easily explored the relationship between Janet or Buzz Aldrin with Neil Armstrong, but this is instead neglected and most of the side characters are nothing than mere plot devices or stereotypes (namely Buzz who acts like this hot shot throughout the film but never has one meaningful conversation with Neil at all!). Instead, most scenes or set pieces act like montages of everything Armstrong did leading up to Apollo 11. Another problem is that the film tries really hard to inject emotion through the death of his daughter. Whilst some people might think that is emotional or deep, I found it super forceful and given that Neil was a stoic character to begin with, the whole relationship thing with his dead daughter felt unearned and often quickly forgotten. Some of the CGI at the end was pretty bad and was unnecessary but the final space sequences was quite good. As Chazelle is obsessed with jazz and music, I found the music choices suprisingly dull and a bit of a hit and miss throughout the film. Most of the meaningful score only comes at the end when Apollo 11 happens. I suppose the film also has a pacing issue because Chazelle decides to focus on some aspects for a very long time ie the Gemini 8 test flights, whilst Apollo 11 actually feels very rushed. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Neil Armstrong is arguably not really an enduring character and there is nothing really meaningful to say about him. He is stoic and straight to the point, but one that never really grows or one that the audience learns anything more about him even by the end of the film.

First man is an overall bland experience which I did not expect after seeing Chazelle's previous works. Where the previous films had a main theme of characters with a craft driven to obsesssion and having to sacrifice their relationships, the problem with the 'Armstrong story' is that we all know what happens - he becomes a global hero and has a happy albeit reclusive life. There is nothing really more to say. If the film decided to focus more on the struggles to get to the Moon and more on Armstrong with the other astronauts (such as who wants to land first/whilst their colleagues kept dying) then I personally think that would've been a better film. First Man unfortunately won't be coming first in terms of this year better films...