A Serious Man

Rating: 7/10 (1 February 2019)

Those of you expecting the high octane All-American space cowboys as portrayed by the 'Mercury Seven' astronauts in 'The Right Stuff' (1983) will be slightly dismayed by the less jingoistic 'First Man' which wants us to believe that, amidst all the excitement and anticipation of landing on the moon, the astronauts of the Mercury and Apollo Programs were just regular rocket scientists who, after a day of being stuffed into flying rockets like sardines would come home to the regular suburban angst of 1960's middle America. While this in and of itself is fair comment, it does make for a less than exciting movie. Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy do a tremendous job playing the iconic Armstrongs as more sobering, poignant and complex characters. (Gosling showing particular adeptness at not revealing any jarring Canadianisms. Whew!) The avoidance of the typical themes of American exceptionalism, frontierism and flag waving are refreshing and commendable enough but the movie focuses on Armstrong's inner psyche at the expense of much needed narrative, stronger supporting characters and special effects that are so unspectacular that one might even suspect that the conspiracy nuts are right - and this all could have been done on a sound stage. But it wasn't and that's reason alone to watch 'First Man'.