Neil Armstrong and Janet Armstrong had a daughter named Karen. Karen died in 1962 at the age of two and nine months. She died from -I want to say- “meningitis” as that seems to be the mystery disease this season, but that’s not right; it was a malignant tumor. If you ask Neil if he would rather have been the First Man on the moon or have his daughter outlive him, I’m pretty sure he’d choose the latter in a heartbeat. Such is the bond of parenthood. I don’t actually know whether Karen’s death influenced Neil’s desire to become an astronaut (Neil became part of NASA eight months after the tragedy). What I do know is First Man was not shy about letting us know that Karen weighed heavily on the minds of Neil (Ryan Gosling) and Janet (Claire Foy) for many years beyond Karen’s death.
Every American and much of the world knows Neil Armstrong as the First Man to walk on the moon. He did so in 1969, a time when America cherished the best and the brightest, then culled from among them the white males to be astronauts. No, no, don’t pretend otherwise; it’s unbecoming to us both. Just know that while Neil was an exceptional and well-deserving human being, his competition wasn’t quite as stiff as it should have been. This is his story, and much of it is, suitably, literally, out-of-this-world, much like Damien Chazelle’s last picture, La La Land.
No film before this one has quite caught the true experience of being a NASA astronaut during the Cold War. And you know what that experience was? Noisy, bumpy, and long. I don’t envy any part of it – the endless waits, the cramped conditions, the lack of privacy, the deliberate explosions at your feet, the feel of attending a non-stop Iron Maiden concert, nor even the 3G Jostle (my favorite dance from the 1960s). It should never be lost, however, that safely landing on and returning from the moon is an achievement by which all other human achievements have been and continue to be measured … and Neil Armstrong is one of the best reasons the mission was successful.
Personally, I’d forgotten how behind in the space race the United States had lagged. Once President Kennedy announced the goal of landing on the moon, NASA jumped on it explaining that missing out on all the smaller space-related goals would pale compared to a moon landing. And NASA was right. However, this seemed a little like losing a 1500 meter footrace by a full minute and suddenly deciding that your goal is winning the Olympic decathlon. So what did NASA do? Search for talent. Acquiring exceptional people is a good place to start, whatever it is you’re attempting to do, and NASA went out and found rocket scientists who could fly the rockets. Even if I scoff from a vantage point of cynical hindsight and a modern post-truth world, I have to accept that I can do neither of these things and Neil Armstrong was an ace at both, without a calculator. I think my favorite moment in the film is watching Neil Armstrong co-piloting a capsule that is currently bouncing off the space side of the Earth’s atmosphere and calling timeout to do some math/physics with pen and paper to adjust to the correct trajectory. I majored in mathematics and that wasn’t on any test I took.
First Man is a noble achievement, but it’s gonna get lost. And it’s gonna get lost because it was not great in an era of great space films (The Martian and Gravity for two), it wasn’t the best film of the Cold War American space genre (I still hold The Right Stuff as the pace setter there, but Apollo 13 is awfully good as well), and it wasn’t a nod to our current social understandings (like Hidden Figures). For whatever genius there is in filming the first-person perspective of a moon launch –which is genius, make no mistake- this film will be compared unfavorably to several others of its ilk and few people are gonna say, “boo.”
I’m a big fan of Ryan Gosling; I think he’s a most gifted actor. That said, I did not appreciate his gifts here. For whatever unknown reason, Ryan Gosling decided to play every scene in the film, whether in a space capsule, talking up Wernher von Braun with the boys, or negotiating with his wife and children, as a reluctant talk show guest. That’s right, Ryan, just stare uncomfortably at the camera for a bit; the audience will get it … again. I’m sure he will get plenty of Oscar attention because of the subject matter of the film, but I wouldn’t call this role anywhere near deserving … or not nearly as deserving as Claire Foy, in the thankless role of astronaut wife, for which I expect she will be thanked. Boy, that’s ironic, huh?
A biopic that serves to balance
This Armstrong who’s great, at a glance
Luckily, doesn’t spoil
Cuz I’s hate to soil
The glory of his namesake, Lance
Rated PG-13, 141 Minutes
Director: Damien Chazelle
Writer: Josh Singer
Genre: Our endless search for moon men
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Neil Arnstrong
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Flat Earthers
