One dimensional supporting characters coupled with unemotional protagonist undermine otherwise technically proficient tale of first lunar landing

Rating: 4/10 (9 December 2019)

I was a bit surprised when I saw the director of a film about the first man on the moon was Damien Chazelle. His prior films were quite different. There was that turgid melodrama, Whiplash, about an angry music teacher; and then La La Land, a musical with a mediocre script but some great music which almost won the Academy Award for best picture. Chazelle helped his cause here by again employing Justin Hurwitz to write the score which probably saved the film from complete oblivion.

Chazelle seeks to humanize his protagonist, astronaut Neil Armstrong, flatly played by Ryan Gosling. Unfortunately, attempting to turn Armstrong into a multi-dimensional character is a tall order indeed. The problem is that Armstrong was a very dry, unemotional individual, a character who doesn't lend himself to great drama.

Chazelle suggests that the death of his two year old daughter in 1962 from a brain tumor drove him into a deep emotional shell which he never completely emerged. Chazelle repeatedly reminds us of the emotional toll Armstrong's daughter's death had on him throughout the film. Armstrong's first wife Janet (Claire Foy) ends up feeling beleaguered due to her husband's emotional distancing (one notable scene occurs when Janet orders a reluctant Armstrong to sit down with his two young sons and warn them that he may not be coming back from his moon mission).

But aside from Armstrong's reticence to display much emotion and his wife's compulsion to push back at that, there is little discernible human conflict in First Man. This extends to the other characters Armstrong comes in contact with throughout the film who remain one-dimensional and underdeveloped. Had Chazelle's screenwriter, Josh Singer, been able to flesh out some of these characters more effectively, First Man probably wouldn't feel as slow moving, already hampered by its 141 minute running time.

Chazelle on the other hand shines in the technical department. The early scenes of Armstrong as a test pilot are engaging and even better is how he shows just how flawed the space program was until finally perfected when the moon landing was accomplished. Particularly harrowing is the scene in which a flash fire kills three astronauts during a cockpit simulation for Apollo 1. There's also the early Gemini 8 mission in which Armstrong almost lost his life when he and his crew almost lose control of their malfunctioning spaceship.

In the end, Chazelle can't avoid hagiography. With a better script, his aim of presenting the events leading up to the first lunar landing may have ended successfully.