Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong
“FIRST MAN” My rating: B
141 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
With “First Man” wonderkid director Damien Chazelle has segued from the high artifice of a musical (“La La Land”) to a soaked-in-realism docudrama.
“First Man” is the story of Neil Armstrong, who in 1969 became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.
The creation of NASA, setbacks in the U.S. space program and the eventual triumph of a moon landing already have inspired the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” and films like “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13.”
The emphasis from Chazelle and screenwriter Josh Singer is on momentous events as experienced by one man…and not a terribly demonstrative man at that.
The Neil Armstrong of this retelling is a jet jockey whom we first meet in a near-disastrous sub-orbital test flight of the experimental X-15 plane. Like a lot of guys who risk death as part of their daily routine, he keeps his feelings — both fear and love — pretty much to himself. Whatever ego he possesses stays hidden…getting the job done is his primary goal.
So it’s a good thing, then, that Armstrong is played by “La La…” star Ryan Gosling, who has the skill and talent to project the inner turmoil of a man who doesn’t give away much.
The screenplay cannily focuses on Armstrong’s most traumatic experience. It has nothing to do with ejecting from a crashing plane and being dragged across the landscape by his wind-propelled parachute.
No, it’s the cancer death of his young daughter, a beautiful child who, thanks to the Chazelle/Singer screenplay, appears periodically to Armstrong’s inner eye, a reminder that no matter his stoic appearance, there’s fierce emotion bubbling beneath.
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