First Man: The Human Toll of Ambition

You may be wondering why you need to watch a movie about Neil Armstrong, when you already know he successfully landed on the moon in 1969 and uttered those iconic lines. However, in First Man, director Damian Chazelle tells a poignant story about men in the 1960s, the women who took care of their families, and the perils, rewards, and foolhardy ambition that fueled the US-Soviet space race.

Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong, a casting coup because you need an actor in this role who can convey a great deal with his face instead of dialogue. This is a man who doesn't talk much, and instead is intently focused on his love of flying and eventually space travel. He is level-headed and calm in the most alarming situations, which is why he is a stellar astronaut, but also why he is a difficult husband and father. At the beginning of the film, we see how the Armstrongs' young daughter, Karen, dies at the age of two from cancer. Neil never discusses this with his wife or his colleagues, instead throwing himself back into work and shoving aside his grief. However, in moments of peril, visions of his daughter always come flooding back, and we see the culmination of that grief in a particularly profound moment during the moon landing.

Claire Foy is magnificent as Armstrong's wife, Janet, and is probably in the running for a Best Supporting Actress statuette this year. She grounds the whole movie, providing the female perspective in a story that is otherwise dominated by men and their ambitions to one-up each other. One of my favorite moments is when she storms into NASA demanding they turn her communication box back on so she can listen to what is happening to Neil in space (they cut off her comms when they realized he was getting into some trouble.) She rebukes them, declaring that they are all "boys building models out of balsa wood," which is not an inaccurate description of the entire Space program.

Indeed, the moments you spend inside a rocket are the most claustrophobic and bewildering of the movie. Expertly shot so that you can almost feel your stomach lurch and your chest compress as the G-force piles up during a launch, Chazelle has perfectly captured the absurd wonder of those early space missions. There are shots of streaky windows and rusty rivets, and as you watch the spaceship rattle and every dashboard light up and every alarm go off, you wonder how anyone ever made it into space, let alone landing on the Moon and safely returning. It's a magnificent space movie and the utter silence during key moments help to fuel your awestruck wonder at the visuals. Then the theremin-laced score swells and tugs at your soul some more. Ultimately this is a magnificent human story about how grief can fuel ambition and men can continue to strive for greatness despite personal tragedy. But again, they can only do this because of the women they leave behind. When Janet insists that Neil talk to their sons and prepare them for the fact that their father may never return from space, you are reminded of how much is being sacrificed.

There are many fine character actors throughout this film and you can start taking bets on which of them will die first to represent the rising death toll of the Gemini and Apollo missions that preceded the successful moon landing. There is so much tragedy that has been overshadowed by this unparalleled human achievement, and First Man gives those men their due.  Nowadays, we only hear that man set foot on the moon, but this movie highlights all the political protests against NASA and the huge cost of sending men into space instead of taking care of the people on the ground. It's a fight that continues today, which is why NASA has yet to send any men to the moon in the 21st century. Ultimately, First Man looks at whether all of this was worth the cost, and frankly, I still don't the answer.