Here’s an underrated modern gem. First Man launched in 2018 and was directed by Damien Chazelle, who stylised the film as a biographical drama.

It’s about NASA’s trip to the Moon in 1969, but focusses on Neil Armstrong and his personal battles up to the big event.

And this is an excellent film! One we think deserves re-evaluation over five years on from its launch thanks to its understated, unshowy performances and challenging script.

Exploring Neil Armstrong’s Battle Beyond Grief in First Man

We remember when this launched in 2018 all the praise for it and wanting to see it in the cinema. For some reason we didn’t end up going, which we’re disappointed about now.

But better late than never! Which is very much the case with NASA’s attempts to get humans onto Earth’s nearest celestial object.

The interesting thing about First Man? This is no gung-ho American nationalism chest beating experience.

Instead, what the film explores is the human tragedy to get to 1969. Alongside glimpses of societal dissatisfaction with NASA’s project.

And that’s wrapped up around Armstrong’s grief at the loss of his two-year-old daughter to a brain tumour.

After he’s dismissed from a test pilot job, he applies to NASA’s open positions to joint he Gemini project. This is to put humans (or “men”, if you will) on the Moon. He gets his interview chance and heads on in.

From there, First Man does a great job demonstrating the sheer danger of what NASA was trying to do. And the human cost involved in that.

For example, there’s a clear (and frightening) depiction of the 27th January 1967 fire at the Cape Kennedy launch pad. It was for an Apollo 204 (AS-204) test and was the first intended mission to get to land on the Moon.

There was a malfunction and astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were killed when a huge fire ripped through their crew compartment.

You can compare that alongside the 2020 documentary Challenger: The Final Flight to see just how dangerous space travel really is. These brilliant people have been pushing the limits of what’s achievable and the cost has, at times, been horrific.

By the time viewers get round to the the crew’s lift off, we’re well aware of what’s at stake. Prior to this scene, there’s a discussion behind closed doors on the press releases to provide if the astronauts all die.

This is on Apollo 11, of course, which we all know makes it to the Moon.

The film just has a lot of audio and visual reminders of the doubt surrounding that possibility at every second. The clanky, juddering space shuttle being one of the stark reminders.

All of which eventually merge to form the film’s perfect centrepiece.

First Man’s Incredible Moon Landing Sequence

The momentous occasion of landing on the Moon for the first time is given lavish cinematic treatment.

What a sequence! One best to watch after the full build-up to it for the full effect, but by itself it’s still quite amazing to watch unfold. Brilliant action and tension.

We do wish we’d watched this before our recent modern films are all rubbish podcast, as this scene should be viewed as a modern classic. All-time classic, frankly, with its tension and perfect pacing.

There’s also a brilliant moment at 2:25 in the clip when the lunar module starts to roll. It calls back to Armstrong’s training earlier in the film (which causes participants to pass out due to the G forces) and how he’s able to handle it when fully trained. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but eagle-eyed viewers will spot it (and that’s not us patting ourselves on the back, we’re idiots).

A note to the fantastic score here, too, which was composed by Justin Hurwitz who’d previously won two Oscars for 2016’s La La Land.

From a historical point of view, this scene (and much of the film) sticks pretty close to real life. The actual 1969 audio feedback from Houston is used in this scene.

That’s for issues such as the program alarm 1202 and then 1201. Despite their vast training for the landing, Aldrin and Armstrong didn’t know those signals meant. NASA was able to clear them as a non-issue.

But they did land with only 50 seconds worth of fuel left (that was found out later, at the exact time they thought it was only 25 seconds).

The two astronauts then head out for the surface and Gosling reads Armstrong’s most famous of lines.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The real Armstrong was annoyed about that for the rest of his life, as he insisted there’s an “a” missing in the “for man” bit. One the technology at the time potentially didn’t pick up. Either that or, in all the excitement, Armstrong missed a letter.

But this is all part of First Man’s great triumph—helping viewers who weren’t around in 1969 to understand just how incredible an achievement it was.

Something we all take for granted these days.

Essentially, it was a tin can bolted together with woeful technology compared to modern day space travel. And yet they stuck the thing on the Moon all the same.

To note, it’s not a perfect film.

There are long scenes where Armstrong’s wife Janet (played by British actress Claire Foy, seemingly still using her British accent… for some reason) kind of just mopes about looking after their two sons.

These scenes are kind of important to convey normal life away from what Armstrong is doing, but do drag quite a bit. And Foy’s character is given little to do except complain.

We consider that the film’s only real misstep. And it’s a minor quibble.

Away from that, the cast is superb. Gosling may be typecast a little bit after 2010’s excellent Drive, where he plays the strong but silent existential crisis type. But his style is put to great effect here and reducing his performance to “another one of those” is a bit lazy.

It’s not flashy or showy with yelling and whooping, he’s dealing with immense grief due to the loss of his daughter and multiple friends.

All whilst balancing out the momentous occasion ahead of him. Which does make First Man a study of grief and loss alongside astonishing triumph. It’s fascinating stuff and we can highly recommend it.

Hang On, But Weren’t the Moon Landings Faked? (conspiracy theory alert)

No, they weren’t. Stop talking bollocks.

The Production of First Man

Filming took place in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 2017. Innovative technology was used in the shoot, with the crew skipping the use of green screens. Instead, they had spherical LED displays to display images around the actors.

For exterior shots of the spacecraft, traditional miniatures were used (over the modern, and often much-maligned, excessive use of CGI).

Unlike in Apollo 13 (1995) with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton, the crew didn’t film in zero gravity. For that film, the actors filmed most of the zero gravity scenes 90 seconds at a time in Zero-G flight aeroplanes.

Here, the crew instead relied on a balancing system. They also had NASA historian Christian Gelzer on-set to provide insights (along with various astronauts from the later Apollo missions).

Director Chazelle was very eager for many of the scenes to match the famous archival footage we’ve all seen since 1969. So, First Man does replicate many of those.

As for the star, Ryan Gosling put in some method actor stuff for the role of Neil Armstrong, going through the whole astronaut training process.

He spends the film minus his facial hair, which is an odd experience that makes him look about 21 (he was late 30s at the time of the shoot).

But if you look at pictures of Neil Armstrong from the mid-’60s, clean shaven and aged 35, he also looks like he should still be at school.

Despite Gosling’s leading man star power, the film had a disappointing box office return. The budget was $70 million and the film made $105.7 million, which is considered something of a failure these days ($59 million net return).

You could debate why exactly that is, such as the film lacking a strong sense of American patriotism that Apollo 13 had in spades.

But then Oppenheimer launched last year and is similar to First Man in its themes, but Christopher Nolan’s film was a blockbuster sensation at the box office.

However, if you look at the audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (with a 67% score compared to 87% from film critics) you can find some reasons why. Negative reviews class the film as plodding, dull, and depressing.

One 2/5 user review has this to say.

“Big Meh. Boring and too long. Everything feels depressing with no real effort in trying to achieve accuracy. Lacks any exitement and awe that apollo 13 managed to portray. Felt as if armstrong was taken along for the ride and not partaking in it. Sound effect are horrendous. Spaceships all sound like a rusty fence gates.”

So there we go, the film was too depressing for many cinemagoers.

We should note Neil Armstrong’s two sons (Mark and Rick) commented the film’s portrayal of their parents was the most accurate they’ve seen.

As for boring… well, we think it’s rightly methodical in its approach, lasting for over two hours. That leads to those incredible pay offs, not least the landing sequence. Although some of those Janet-Armstrong-berating-her-kids scenes could have been toned down or removed.

On the plus side, First Man was critically acclaimed.

It enjoyed four Oscar nominations (winning one for visual effects), 10 nominations at the 24th Critics Choice Awards, and seven nominations at the 72nd British Academy film Awards.