First Man- Movie Review (No Spoilers)

By Michael Momper


The unknown. The ethereal beauty of space. Silence. Utter, unadulterated darkness. The unknown. Poetry in motion.

When contemplating and witnessing the wonderfully captured expeditions of Neil Armstrong and his various crews in Damien Chazelle's latest masterpiece, First Man, these were some of the themes that continued to resurface in my head. I was completely mesmerized, feeling catapulted into the very shuttle that Neil was occupying at any given moment. Yet another smashing success from Chazelle, this movie further confirmed my feeling that the young writer/director knows exactly how to capture the landscape of the human soul, of relationships, and of the maniac and possessive drive of mankind to create or do things that are magnificent. The pace that Chazelle finds in his movies is eloquent, and always reminds me of the to-and-fro dance of a great Broadway play or a young romance.

Neil is an extremely interesting subject, as he is not your typical or archetypal hero. He is a reluctant hero, quiet, somewhat reclusive, and emotionally subdued. He reminded me at times of the soft-spoken strength of Robert De Niro's Taxi Driver character, Travis Bickle. Ryan Gosling is excellent at nailing down these types of characters, who can portray an awful lot in a glance or an understated delivery, and his portrayal of Neil is no different. It really flips your idea of the typical hero on its head as you are reminded that there are plenty of quiet, calculated people every day doing extraordinary things, but their complex being is rarely portrayed in film as it is often seen as too difficult to extract and illuminate without boring the audience. I thought Gosling and Claire Foy (who portrays Neil's wife Janet) did a wonderful job of showing the nuanced lives of the quiet and hard-working American couple.

The movie absolutely nails the drive that Neil and fellow Americans had to voyage into the unknown and be the pioneers of a new age in human achievement, while showing the inventive superiority of the American way of life to that of the Soviet Union- and with its collapse this became abundantly clear. The movie throttles you into the unexplored right in Neil's seat, with exquisite sound production that reminded me constantly of the mind-blowing immersion that Christopher Nolan's sound design typically produces (see Dunkirk, Interstellar or The Dark Knight for examples). As always with Chazelle, you will get a heart-wrenching glance into human relationships, which he always captures so beautifully. Somehow, even on the untouched and cosmically wondrous surface of the moon, I found myself wondering if Neil was at peace with his life on that whirling blue cinder that he had just come from. For the reaches of human companionship seem just as full of potential, danger and mystery as the reaches of space.

This movie is an experience. You will be able to grasp the hardships that the men and women of NASA endured to give us a victory in the Space Race and give young kids far into the future the hope that they too could take the human race forward in ways we never previously would have dreamed. Chazelle's masterful use of silence is crucial to the balanced pacing and wonder of the movie; the importance of this technique is one that I cannot stress enough. The use of silence builds tension and magnifies the impact of the visual horizon. It is a craft that is forgone too often in Hollywood, especially in the noisy blockbusters of today. Expect to feel this tension pull at you as you are whisked away into space, and enjoy every minute of the bumpy ride.

 Rating: 94/100