A very realistic approach to a biopic drama

Rating: 8/10 (19 October 2018)

Damien Chazelle departs from the music-driven narratives of his previous films to a more sober, cold and contemplative work in First Man. In his storytelling, however, he keeps the focus on his characters and tries his best to convey their feelings through the performances of his actors. Claire Foy and Ryan Gosling really give their upmost performances to enhance the drama and convey their characters' feelings, anguishes and internal struggles. The final product is beautiful and well crafted, but somehow cold and disappointing. You feel like you should have been given more by the script, and even though you are invested in the characters (thanks to amazing direction and performances), the emotional peaks are not that high for the character arcs. To a certain extent, that was the best they could make out of a sad story involving a very introspective and cold lead man who doesn't have too many conflicting decisions to make. From that perspective, Gosling is perfect as Neil Armstrong. He really incorporates this introspective man who is in deep pain due to all the losses in his life, and through these moments has a difficult time dealing with his family, who supports him all the way through. These conflicts are as realistic as it gets, without glossing over and dramatizing too much, and you have to respect the film for that.
The editing and the camera work are also factors that help to create that atmosphere of loss and grief that filled his personal life, and are big technical achievements in this film. The way it was filmed give us the impression that we are there with those people, with all the documentary-like camera work, the close-ups, and the organic acting.
What the film lacks on dramatic and emotional impact relating to his personal struggles, it has enough to spare on the grandiosity of the moon landing experience. The film keeps its realistic approach when Armstrong goes to work, and what we see is the best picture of what NASA, the Gemini and Apollo missions should have been like back then. Its realism surpasses any other major film about space travel or science fiction, and for being so true to the facts and so aware of itself, it provides for a much deeper and meaningful impact when compared to those other films. The feeling we get whenever he's inside a spacecraft, everything shaking and loud, the claustrophobic sensations, are all very immersive, scary and deliver a great deal of adrenaline and suspense. The feeling of the moon landing is at the same time contemplative and sublime. The sound and the images during that scene put us in the head of Armstrong, and we get to experience what he went through in a very realistic way, and all that provides for a huge emotional climax.
During the plot development, we really get the perspective that anything could go wrong in any moment. All the events the story told before the moon landing were events of failure that gave us the impression that what they were doing was really dangerous and could really go wrong. This perspective on the risks and the amateurishness of all these programs was something new added by this film when compared to all others, that usually romanticize this part, adding difficulties just for plot development, and not really exploring the reality of it. That actually contributed to the overall experience, as we get to feel the horror of a loss, and the fear of something that is being achieved for the first time in history.
The film stands as a masterpiece of realistic depiction of an event, but not so much an emotional depiction of the character and his struggles, as the story wasn't able to feed us as much as necessary for us to care deeply about him.