First Man

Directed By: Damien Chazelle
Written By: Josh Singer
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Cory Stoll

When the titular character of Damien Chazelle’s First Man is asked, as part of the selection process for NASA’s Gemini project, why he thinks space travel is important, he responds with “perspective.” Being up there, we’re told, posits an entirely unique and illuminating vantage point, an invaluable and otherwise unattainable view of the world, one in which, due to the enormity of what is required to achieve it, transfigures from scenic in pleasure to existential.

Chazelle himself quite clearly relishes the prospect of a unique and illuminating perspective, so evident in his ambition to distil the most epic of all real-life odysseys (humanity’s conquest of space) into a raw and intimate portrait of Neil Armstrong as a man