How humans went to Moon for the first time. Ryan Gosling is Neil Armstrong

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2018)

Cinematic wunderkind Damien Chazelle - best known for writing and directing "Whiplash" and "La La Land" - is back with his true magnum opus, an overview of how the man first stepped on the Moon.
We follow the development of the American space program from 1962 through 1969.
The central character is astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) who has to balance his desire of perilous journey to unknown with being a family man.
"First Man" is based on a real events - both story-wise and in technical sense. Everything has been recreated as realistically as possible, using the old technology and filming with handycams, so the audience can directly relate to astronauts' experiences on both intellectual and physiological level.
This means the viewer gets to live through the same chaotic, claustrophobic and disorientedness-inducing conditions that were the part and parcel of real job. And judging from the cinema seat, it feels amazingly authentic.
Scenes like these form a major part of the movie, which is quite long at its 141 minutes, turning it into more than average exhaustive viewing - probably even more so IMAX.
Near the end, by the time they really reach the Moon, I must admit I was already a bit worn down by all this visually shaky and messy directing style that Chazelle has chosen. I'd had my fill of the technical stuff and was longing for a chance to explore more the human side of the story.
As Armstrong turns out to have been a rather closely guarded individual with no desire to be a star or American hero, we don't get to learn much about him.
Which is positive in a way, because there's room for many other people who need to be on the screen (played by Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Pablo Schreiber, CiarÃ¡n Hinds, Patrick Fugit et al).
Gosling has always been good with characters of private, secluded nature, so there's not much new to tell about his another exemplary performance. He's charismatic as always.
The second most important performance belongs to Claire Foy as Armstrong's wife. Although her amount of screen time is moderate, she's the one that seems to impress the critics the most, leading already speculations about Oscars.
I agree that astronaut's fiery and strong-willed wife is a perfect Supporting Actress award material, and Foy is very good at what she does here. But personally I didn't find her part so essential as to get really excited about it.
It's not her fault. The story never concentrates that much on characters' inner lives anyway, so "First Man" is really not an actors' movie first.
Still, I would like to have seen more of Armstrong's colleague astronaut Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) whose readiness to always speak out "what everybody is thinking anyway" adds some spicy bits of intrigue to space mission's everyday life.
This is the unused chance to add some depth even without delving into anybody's heads and personal lives, but sadly the authors have not deemed it necessary.
"First Man" is a impressive movie but the technical side is more important than the human one here, which makes it difficult for me to love.
All this shaky physically tormenting chaos on the screen does get a bit monotonous before the end. So be warned, if you are going to see it mostly just to see Gosling, or because you loved "Whiplash" and "La La Land".