Thinking back on prior moviegoing experiences, I've been lately reminiscing on 2014's Whiplash and how much of a exhilarating, full-bodied, robust, palpable work of film it was, successfully selling me on the appeal of both Miles Teller and Damien Chazelle. Spectacularly, while neither of them walked away with an Oscar, they seemed to both be affected the most by the reception of Whiplash, in terms of clout and adulation. After Whiplash, they were truly ready for the major leagues.
Miles Teller did this... by seemingly squandering and/or under-utilizing his talent in films such as Fantastic Four, War Dogs, and Home of the Brave. His draw was that he was a tangible actor, but he was being pushed for stardom; a bid that wasn't dramatically disastrous, but I never can look at him on screen and feel the same full-blooded enthusiasm I used to feel. Thankfully, in terms of Damien Chazelle, he, then and now, realized that influence could only slimly get him by. What mattered was his content and vision. Sure, La La Land proved that he could almost win an Oscar by making an old-fashioned, evocative, frothy musical film, but could he successfully branch out into a suspenseful, verging-on-being-epic pedigree of film?
Well, he sure as hell makes a valiant attempt, telling the story of the First Man.
That "first man" in question is Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. After a mishap as a test pilot and reeling after a personal family tragedy, he decides to apply to Project Gemini, which was trying to beat the Soviet Union in the space race and send us to the moon. The film chronicles the intense planning, rigorous attempts, fantastic close-calls, up until the climactic moon landing, as part of the Apollo program, while detailing all the emotional stresses and losses among the families.
The film's opening shot both showed the film's potential and concerned me, as to what I was afraid the film could've been with uncertain, reticent direction. It establishes the pervasive feeling of isolation and rapid hazard, fraught with some of the most aggressive, unremitting, and assaulting shaky cam I've seen in years and the eyes of Armstrong, seething with malaise and heightened embarrassment. As a test pilot, he bounces his fighter jet off the atmosphere, which gets him grounded.
I was apprehensive, because I thought that the intrigue and human interest of Armstrong would be cherry-picked and boiled down to some insultingly simple, psuedo-inspirational, excessively sentimental narrative. Chazelle clearly does want to modulate the heroism of Armstrong, but he does this not through any mandated story arcs or Hollywood contrivances, but through humanity, which is what carries the film.
As engaging as his journey of dedication and merely doing his job is, the most touching sequences involving Armstrong are centered around him mourning his young daughter. I loved watching him interacting with her in the beginning, stroking her hair with initial, loving tenderness, but seems to strike a devastating tone of finality and tragic attachment as the film proceeds. In the subsequent funeral scene, Armstrong struggles to keep a stony face at her funeral, but forcibly sobs behind closed doors in a specifically plaintive moment. As well, the most memorable, sobering moment of the moon landing sequence involves Armstrong letting his daughter's bracelet slip out of his hand and into darkness, all portrayed with a potency and gravitas that nearly left me in tears.
For all the talk about it being about the "first man," I would've personally called this "First Men," because while Armstrong seems to be in the middle of this cinematic venn diagram, the film gives equal attention to all the astronauts. It doesn't depict them in broad clichés and while the film bequeaths many of them with melancholic fates, it doesn't write them as melancholic figures. There are many scenes of genuine camaraderie between Armstrong, his fellow astronauts, and their families. The film manages to intertwine NASA lives and personal lives naturally and you become so invested that you can actually name and mourn the men who slowly get picked off, one by one.
However, if you are going to make a movie called First Man, you need a damn good one. And Ryan Gosling? Yeah, he'll do.
Gosling portrays Armstrong as an benevolent Everyman with both an external, unwavering, committed courage and a desperate, internal sensitivity. He has no time to waste, lacks any sort of predisposition for quitting, and feels like he must shut off any emotional weakness to be a hero to his children. I'm not quite sure if Gosling will receive Oscar consideration for this role, but if he does...
...you might to also guide some of that over to Claire Foy, who gives the stand-out performance as Neil's wife. She's cold and harshly quiet, but that's the magnetism and addictive power of her character. Watching the film, she truly is the backbone of the household, because in all actuality, she carries most, if not all, of the burden as a homemaker. She has no position to break down and even if she did, it would have little value. She cries once throughout the film early on and that's it.
This sort of domestic pluckiness and staunch grit juxtaposes beautifully against Gosling's soft, composed attitude in a scene where Armstrong's wife demands him to explain to his two sons that this mission might be his last. While the scene doesn't pay off as well at it initially establishes, the interplay between the struggle to keep confident and collected on his part and the struggle to preach reality on her part is an explosive, propulsive, captivating moment. In addition, they share a emotionally spare and quiet, yet mentally, analytically complex exchange for the final shot. They don't utter a word, yet every liberating, painful, and gentle thought is shared amongst each other with ferocious purpose.
Chazelle isn't going to wow in the field of special effects, nor should you expect any manufactured thrills, but what Chazelle specializes is in craft. This film shows a departure from a typical music-inspired narrative and yet he still shows a whopping amount of prudent instinct in that field, thanks to our old, Chazelle-film friend, Justin Hurwitz. The orchestral music sounds so gorgeous, yet so distinct and so perfectly timed. Even the regular sound editing manages to be so peculiarly, wonderfully trippy in some areas, such as the first failed mission when the rocket spins out of control and the sound effects used sound something a la Psycho. While the film isn't packaged with gimmicky suspense sequences, there are some genuine thrills along the way and the moon landing sequence manages to bring a vaster, hauntingly desolate scope to outer space that is uniquely its own.
First Man isn't going to be hailed as a new masterpiece and, yeah, sometimes it does get a little too melodramatic for its own good, although ever so briefly. However, I was surprised, relieved, and satisfied that Chazelle can step outside of his comfort zone and imbue the American-as-apple-pie image of this "giant step for man and giant leap for mankind" milestone with enough warmth, wit, and authentic, bracing emotions to activate a extra echelon on veneration for these fine men, including the First Man. This film is not a historical dramatization, but moreso a layered portrayal of a precarious moment in our history.
On that basis, I thankfully enjoyed it.
RATING: Three out of four stars
Miles Teller did this... by seemingly squandering and/or under-utilizing his talent in films such as Fantastic Four, War Dogs, and Home of the Brave. His draw was that he was a tangible actor, but he was being pushed for stardom; a bid that wasn't dramatically disastrous, but I never can look at him on screen and feel the same full-blooded enthusiasm I used to feel. Thankfully, in terms of Damien Chazelle, he, then and now, realized that influence could only slimly get him by. What mattered was his content and vision. Sure, La La Land proved that he could almost win an Oscar by making an old-fashioned, evocative, frothy musical film, but could he successfully branch out into a suspenseful, verging-on-being-epic pedigree of film?
Well, he sure as hell makes a valiant attempt, telling the story of the First Man.
That "first man" in question is Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. After a mishap as a test pilot and reeling after a personal family tragedy, he decides to apply to Project Gemini, which was trying to beat the Soviet Union in the space race and send us to the moon. The film chronicles the intense planning, rigorous attempts, fantastic close-calls, up until the climactic moon landing, as part of the Apollo program, while detailing all the emotional stresses and losses among the families.
The film's opening shot both showed the film's potential and concerned me, as to what I was afraid the film could've been with uncertain, reticent direction. It establishes the pervasive feeling of isolation and rapid hazard, fraught with some of the most aggressive, unremitting, and assaulting shaky cam I've seen in years and the eyes of Armstrong, seething with malaise and heightened embarrassment. As a test pilot, he bounces his fighter jet off the atmosphere, which gets him grounded.
I was apprehensive, because I thought that the intrigue and human interest of Armstrong would be cherry-picked and boiled down to some insultingly simple, psuedo-inspirational, excessively sentimental narrative. Chazelle clearly does want to modulate the heroism of Armstrong, but he does this not through any mandated story arcs or Hollywood contrivances, but through humanity, which is what carries the film.
As engaging as his journey of dedication and merely doing his job is, the most touching sequences involving Armstrong are centered around him mourning his young daughter. I loved watching him interacting with her in the beginning, stroking her hair with initial, loving tenderness, but seems to strike a devastating tone of finality and tragic attachment as the film proceeds. In the subsequent funeral scene, Armstrong struggles to keep a stony face at her funeral, but forcibly sobs behind closed doors in a specifically plaintive moment. As well, the most memorable, sobering moment of the moon landing sequence involves Armstrong letting his daughter's bracelet slip out of his hand and into darkness, all portrayed with a potency and gravitas that nearly left me in tears.
For all the talk about it being about the "first man," I would've personally called this "First Men," because while Armstrong seems to be in the middle of this cinematic venn diagram, the film gives equal attention to all the astronauts. It doesn't depict them in broad clichés and while the film bequeaths many of them with melancholic fates, it doesn't write them as melancholic figures. There are many scenes of genuine camaraderie between Armstrong, his fellow astronauts, and their families. The film manages to intertwine NASA lives and personal lives naturally and you become so invested that you can actually name and mourn the men who slowly get picked off, one by one.
However, if you are going to make a movie called First Man, you need a damn good one. And Ryan Gosling? Yeah, he'll do.
Gosling portrays Armstrong as an benevolent Everyman with both an external, unwavering, committed courage and a desperate, internal sensitivity. He has no time to waste, lacks any sort of predisposition for quitting, and feels like he must shut off any emotional weakness to be a hero to his children. I'm not quite sure if Gosling will receive Oscar consideration for this role, but if he does...
...you might to also guide some of that over to Claire Foy, who gives the stand-out performance as Neil's wife. She's cold and harshly quiet, but that's the magnetism and addictive power of her character. Watching the film, she truly is the backbone of the household, because in all actuality, she carries most, if not all, of the burden as a homemaker. She has no position to break down and even if she did, it would have little value. She cries once throughout the film early on and that's it.
This sort of domestic pluckiness and staunch grit juxtaposes beautifully against Gosling's soft, composed attitude in a scene where Armstrong's wife demands him to explain to his two sons that this mission might be his last. While the scene doesn't pay off as well at it initially establishes, the interplay between the struggle to keep confident and collected on his part and the struggle to preach reality on her part is an explosive, propulsive, captivating moment. In addition, they share a emotionally spare and quiet, yet mentally, analytically complex exchange for the final shot. They don't utter a word, yet every liberating, painful, and gentle thought is shared amongst each other with ferocious purpose.
Chazelle isn't going to wow in the field of special effects, nor should you expect any manufactured thrills, but what Chazelle specializes is in craft. This film shows a departure from a typical music-inspired narrative and yet he still shows a whopping amount of prudent instinct in that field, thanks to our old, Chazelle-film friend, Justin Hurwitz. The orchestral music sounds so gorgeous, yet so distinct and so perfectly timed. Even the regular sound editing manages to be so peculiarly, wonderfully trippy in some areas, such as the first failed mission when the rocket spins out of control and the sound effects used sound something a la Psycho. While the film isn't packaged with gimmicky suspense sequences, there are some genuine thrills along the way and the moon landing sequence manages to bring a vaster, hauntingly desolate scope to outer space that is uniquely its own.
First Man isn't going to be hailed as a new masterpiece and, yeah, sometimes it does get a little too melodramatic for its own good, although ever so briefly. However, I was surprised, relieved, and satisfied that Chazelle can step outside of his comfort zone and imbue the American-as-apple-pie image of this "giant step for man and giant leap for mankind" milestone with enough warmth, wit, and authentic, bracing emotions to activate a extra echelon on veneration for these fine men, including the First Man. This film is not a historical dramatization, but moreso a layered portrayal of a precarious moment in our history.
On that basis, I thankfully enjoyed it.
RATING: Three out of four stars
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