First Man (2018) ★★★1/2

Length:  141 minutes.  MPAA Rating:  PG-13.  USCCB Rating:  A-III.  Director:  Damien Chazelle.  Loud explosions and frightening and intense scenes might be too much for young children.

A test pilot is flying an X-15 spaceplane at amazing speed.  We are in the cockpit with him, experiencing every frightening moment as he briefly loses control of the plane and even does some bouncing off the atmosphere.  At times he can hardly breathe, and it seems as if he could lose his life at any moment.  After a harrowing few minutes, the pilot successfully lands the plane.  And that’s just the beginning of the film.

First Man tells the story of Neil Armstrong, the first human being to set foot on the moon.  The film wisely expands its vision to include much more than the lunar flight that made Armstrong famous.  It also includes his brush with death in the X-15, his extraordinary rolling nightmare in the Gemini 8 spacecraft (a horrifying tumble at the rate of 296 degrees per second), and his ejection from a crashing lunar lander test vehicle. 

In all these scenes, as well as the beautifully executed lunar landing (re-created in exacting detail, including Armstrong’s famous switch to manual to avoid a sea of boulders), the emphasis is not on who Armstrong was but on what Armstrong experienced.  More than anything else, this is a film of immersion – a cinematic work that is intent on putting the audience in the driver’s seat.  We hear, see, and feel everything – and we are convinced that we have lived through the amazing experiences of America’s favorite astronaut.

Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Armstrong is muted and understated.  This should be of no surprise to Gosling fans who know that, for this actor, less is usually more.  Still, we are left wanting more emotive content about Armstrong the man and what made him tick.

The film notably omits the planting of the American flag on the moon – an omission that rightly caused some controversy.  While director Damien Chazelle claimed he wanted to place emphasis on “unseen aspects” of the lunar mission, Chazelle’s reticence to show the flag seems unusual.  Not only is the planting of the American flag not shown, the flag itself is shown only in very distant shots, so that we can barely make out the small red white and blue smudge in the middle of the screen. 

This is strange most especially because there are precious few lunar landing artifacts associated with the Apollo 11 mission – the lunar module, the two astronauts, the American flag, and the modest experiments set up outside.  Eliminate any one of these elements and it becomes noticeable – painfully so.  It is Chazelle’s careful avoidance of the flag that unnecessarily draws attention to itself and creates the controversy in the first place.  A single shot of Buzz Aldrin standing next to the flag, or even walking by the flag, would have been sufficient for most audiences.  But Chazelle’s bizarre decision actually ruins what could have been a perfect re-creation of this historic event by placing emphasis on avoiding the flag instead of simply depicting the lunar landing in its fullest reality.  It’s like making a film about the Statue of Liberty while avoiding any shots of the torch.  It makes no sense and is distracting for the audience.

Other than that notable omission, First Man is an amazing, immersive experience and a loving tribute to all who worked on the Apollo project.