Review of First Man (2018) by Andrewburge — 02 Mar 2019

Just what kind of man must you be not only to undergo the first ever Moon landing, but to do it with such a lack of fear despite having an insight into the amount of risks you undertake. Neil Armstrong, at least how he was portrayed by Ryan Gosling here, was such a man.

The first few scenes depict him flying a rocket plane when it inadvertently bounced off the atmosphere. He has a brush with death as he attempts to land it in the Mojave Desert. He succeeds, but for a man who has just been in the atmosphere a couple of minutes ago, then had a near-fatal crash, he was unmoved. Some people find this bland, but I find it fascinating. Not to mention the power of the scene was helped by Justin Hurwitz's ambitious score and Damien Chazelle's precise direction. The noises were brief, hard-hitting, the cogs could be heard breaking apart and the frames were mostly stationary feeling like an impact.

The film is also careful to make sure to keep you entertained even during the times when Neil is not in the cockpit. Of course, these moments are not as tense, they can't be, but Damien Chazelle crafts his opaque personality in a clever way. Early in the film, he loses Karen, his two-year-old daughter, to a brain tumor. This is the first of the many funeral scenes in the film. Throughout the film, he only mentions her once, to his colleague, Ed (Jason Clarke), but you can feel he is always thinking about her.

Somehow, Gosling's content portrayal carries this film. He remains apparently unmoved to the countless deaths of astronauts testing the Apollo Mission rocket, he always keeps a certain distance from his family. His wife, Janet (Claire Foy) is the one who from time to time breaks his wall and she is truly strong. But his pain does not come from fear to his job, as he loves it, but from loss. Always looking up at the Moon, maybe, just maybe, thinking that Karen is somewhere over there.

This might seem far-fetched, but his ambition is brought by pain. In the final scenes, when he steps on the Moon, he looks around as if he is not impressed, but disappointed. There is nothing and in the end, he drops Karen's bracelet on the ground and realizes this is it. This is all there is to it.