Damien Chazelle has a musical mind. He's directed two musicals, La La Land being the big one, and a movie about a drummer sacrificing it all to achieve his ambitions. Now, let's examine a rather poetic scene from First Man.
The Gemini 8, piloted by Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), is in the process of docking with an unmanned vessel. The spacecraft float towards one another, making sure their motions are in tune. A symphony plays a waltz rivaling the theme from Super Mario Galaxy. It's a musical sequence, an extraterrestrial dance.
I couldn't help watching the scene with a huge grin on my face. I love stuff like this. I love the cinematic grandeur of the shots. Chazelle's directorial eye appears to be improving in every movie he makes. I love the music. Justin Hurwitz knows his way around a music sheet. What's more, I love the sentimentality of it all. For generations jaded on Star Trek and Star Wars, nothing is less romantic than ships docking, but there's romance here. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Throughout First Man, Chazelle's musical background shows up like this more than once, but he also steps away from the overstated nature of the musical genre to tell the story of a man who seems incapable of expressing emotions and inner feelings. Ryan Gosling plays Armstrong with intense understatement. The performance borderlines on doing nothing, yet Gosling is doing something. He does bring the audience into his inner world and I would consider it among his best.
Claire Foy is predictably excellent as Janet Armstrong, though this is very much a "man's film." That much is evident in the title. It's about a guy amidst a bunch of guys who understand the historical significance of their mission and are out to seek glory for their country (yes, this is also a patriotic film) and for themselves. Still, Foy manages to leave her mark.
Occasional oversentimentality, however, prevents a very good movie from being a great one. It doesn't commit all the way to the story's quiet, unassuming center.
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