First Man is first rate

Rating: 8/10 (14 October 2018)

There are two sequences that form the linchpins of this movie, and both happen in the second half. The first of these, predictably, is the Apollo 11 launch sequence that after years of preparation at last sent Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins on their way to the Moon. It's magnificent. The screen gives this sequence the full treatment it deserves, combining closeups from the gantry tower with horizon-to-horizon views of the vehicle climbing into the sky, all punctuated and emphasized by a majestic score from Justin Hurwitz (who also scored Whiplash and La La Land, though I didn't know him by name till now). And the Saturn V multistage rocket that was built for the Apollo lunar missions really was a monster (there's one on view nicely laid out end-to-end at the Cape Canaveral visitor center that is jaw-droppingly awesome. It takes a long, long time to walk from one end to the other.) It's only now, half a century later, that a new generation of launch vehicles of similar power are finally being built again.
The second sequence, again predictably, is the descent to the Lunar surface, which is likely the closest this historic mission came to disaster. The last part of it is played out almost in real time and includes segments of the actual footage from the spider-like Apollo 11 lander, during which Armstrong took manual control to locate a workable landing site and touch down JUST before the fuel ran out. This is for real; the nominal site turned out to have too many large boulders for safety, which the astronauts could see once they got close, and yes indeed they were that close to running on fumes.
First Man fits nicely alongside other first-rate movies about the real history of space flight including Apollo 13 (1995) and The Right Stuff (1983) -- and also the documentaries Mercury 13 (2018) and In The Shadow Of The Moon (2007). These all have a completely different feel to them than even the best and most realistic science-fiction movies about space (like Interstellar, Gravity, The Martian). You can't go wrong with a film about real history that shows what humans are really capable of.
So why do I give this "only" a rating of 8? Mostly some nagging stylistic concerns with Damien Chazelle's direction. First, Neil Armstrong's story jumps from his beginnings as an X-15 pilot and engineer, to his crucial stint in the Gemini program, and then on into Apollo, but they are shown through a series of vignette scenes rather than a continuous thread. I guess this is just me, but I'm happier with the linear, connected storytelling that Ron Howard used in Apollo 13. Second though, it's Chazelle's decision to use extreme closeups over and over again. Sometimes it works very well indeed, such as the Lunar landing sequence where Armstrong's eyes display a laser-like concentration and focus beyond what most people would even be capable of, let alone under that kind of pressure. It's a great bit of acting by Ryan Gosling and it's done with nothing more than the eyes. Speaking of which, Claire Foy (playing Jan Armstrong) has wonderful, wonderful eyes -- so this stylistic device suits her very well indeed. But a lot of the time this approach generates a sort of claustrophobic feel that would be relieved by an occasional outside wider-angle shot at least to put the scene in context. (And yes I know part of the point was to get across exactly that feel inside a tiny Gemini or Apollo capsule, but why always look BACK at their faces?)
Gosling and Foy are excellent, and also I liked the supporting roles played by Kyle Chandler (as Deke Slayton) and Ciaran Hinds (as Bob Gilruth). The settings for 1950's and 1960's USA life and living are meticulously done. Kudos especially for the music score which is among the best I've heard in any movie; it does what the scene calls for, by turns graceful, rhythmic, powerful, or even just silent -- whatever's needed. The lunar landscape is shown in all its bleak, alien glory with a few scenes that do nothing more (or less) than pan across it silently. Most importantly, entirely without dialog we get the feeling of what it must have been like for someone, one human being, to be the first to set foot on an entirely different world that has been sitting entirely undisturbed for the last 4 billion years.
All this aside though, the true theme of the film is obviously meant to be a character study of Neil Armstrong. It's well known that he was both an introvert and a very, very good astronaut who had built a record of something you could call extreme competence. He always had the right insight, said the right thing, made the right decisions under pressure -- all of which came into play during Apollo 11. But after the Apollo program was over he avoided publicity and moved to a quiet life as a professor of aerospace engineering at U.Cincinnati and remained something of an enigma right to his death in 2012. Did he actually leave on the moon that tiny bracelet of his daughter who died tragically at age 2? No one yet knows but it was a reasonable guess on the writers' part, and it rather effectively ties together an essential part of his story arc. I don't know how realistically the relationship between Neil and Jan is portrayed, but I suspect that some of it is a bit speculative.
But go and see it for those two central sequences. They alone are worth the price of admission.