Fine, inward looking NASA epic about Armstrong & Moon Landing

Rating: Null/10 (26 October 2018)

FIRST MAN - I am a child of the space race who grew up watching the Jetsons, drinking Tang (because the astronauts did!) and having posters of the Astronauts (including Neil A. Armstrong) on my walls. I give FIRST MAN a titan sized thumbs up for authenticity and accuracy (a few quibbles).
There is no question that the NASA moon program of the 60s and early 70s was one of the greatest explorations of human history, crowned with the successful landing of Apollo 11 nearly 50 years ago. As the Lunar Module pilot and, of course, the first man to walk on the moon, Armstrong has always been at the center of attention. But, as FIRST MAN ably displays, that is NOT where Armstrong wanted that focus to be. He was mission driven and not one to bask in the glory. Anything but. (One of the reasons Armstrong has long been such a hero is that he never cashed in on his fame)
Armstrong's insular ways presented Screenwriter Josh Singer (SPOTLIGHT) and Director Damien Chazelle (LA LA LAND) with a daunting task: How to capture one of mankind's greatest feats through the lens of such a quiet man? To their credit, the filmmakers approached the challenge head on. Rather than add all kinds of external details (no matter how accurately) and colorful side characters, the film focuses like a laser on Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and his wife (a strong Claire Foy). There are other characters, of course, but, they never take away from Armstrong and his family. Indeed, the taciturn Armstrong is portrayed as so 'ordinary' that he could just as well have remained a behind-the-scenes engineer if it weren't for his extraordinary pilot skills.
Gosling is often a wiry actor, but, he jettisons all that for his intense, yet internalized, performance here. No matter how vast the scale of Armstrong's two missions in space, the film never really wavers from being from the Armstrongs' point of view.* Even while on the moon, there are times you forget Buzz Aldrin is there on the lunar surface with him**. Armstrong's skills, attitude and level-headedness are what made him an ideal candidate to be a commander of an Apollo mission within NASA (although it must be noted that when Armstrong was tapped for Apollo 11, there wasn't a guarantee it would be the FIRST moon-landing flight - the film fudges that).
The technical aspects here are well handled including the special effects and Linus Sandgren's cinematography (a combination of 16mm, 35mm & 65mm film), and a joy to see on as big a screen as possible (although the jiggly hand-held nature of the camera operation might be cause to sit a bit further back). The supporting cast are fine, even if they are given little room for well-rounded performances. The one quibble is Justin Hurwitz' score. It zings and soars at times, in almost complete opposition to the somber tone of the rest of the film, which points out one of the conundrum's of FIRST MAN: While it's laudable that the movie is so intimately rendered, there are times it borders on the lugubrious. Yes, by all accounts, Armstrong was an intensely quiet man, but, in his public interviews his pride in his accomplishments were palpable, and there were twinkles in his eyes. He even smiled. Nobody but the fools who demanded more literal 'flag-waving' (usually not having seen the film), should have expected huge displays of emotion from Armstrong, but, a little more personality wouldn't have hurt. While the Just The Facts Mam screenplay is well executed, a few more colorful insights and details would also have fleshed it out***
FIRST MAN is a solid entry into the space filmography. It doesn't have the balls out zing of THE RIGHT STUFF, nor the emotional pull of an APOLLO 13, but, it works nicely as an intimate tale all its own. On that score, I believe Neil Armstrong would be proud to be the center of attention - if only for a couple of hours on screen.
*Making the brief anti-Apollo program montage (featuring Gil Scott Heron's "Whitey on the moon' song) stick out even more. It's not that such a protest isn't worth discussing, but, that it literally comes from nowhere in the context of the rest of the 141 minutes
** Aldrin is well known for his cantankerous behavior, but, even so, is portrayed a bit too heavy-handily here. The denouement of Armstrong's walk is one of the film's few exaggerations. It almost certainly didn't occur that way.
*** The Agena spacecraft Armstrong docked with on Gemini 8 was nicknamed 'The Angry Alligator' by one of the astronauts, for example. The Zero G Force training unit was dubbed 'The Vomit Comet'. Etc.