Here On Earth
Here On Earth
The Eyes of The Sky
November 28, 2018
First Man (2018)
My mother held me in her arms as a man walked on the moon.
It’s a line that has been written before and one that we keep close and, appropriately we hope, lean on again here when assessing First Man, the story of Neil Armstrong and his family as he became the first, and one of the few, to set foot on a world outside our own.
A child in a mother’s arms is a simple act of love and intimacy and one that might appear, on first consideration, to be as distant from the accomplishment of a moon landing as one could fathom.
But First Man, while expertly and compellingly chronicling the science, technology, patriotism and politics that propelled Apollo 11 to the moon, ultimately is guided by love and loss that haunted and motivated Armstrong. Love and loss that likely only someone who has held their child in their arms could know.
If you could go to the moon what would you take with you?
And what would you leave there?
Ryan Gosling is inspiringly authentic as the courageous and charmingly imperfect Armstrong, a taciturn man who sought not fame and adventure, but sincerity and meaning as he dedicated his career and, to a painful extent, his life, to reaching the stars.
Claire Foy plays his wife, Janet, and her performance is just as laudable, if not more so, as Gosling’s, just as the sacrifice and courage of Janet Armstrong and so many others whose names did not become famous were as vital to the space race as the actions of the men who climbed into the capsules.
Why wasn’t this story told earlier? Why wasn’t Neil Armstrong on TV more when the kid who was in his mother’s arms on July 20, 1969 was growing up?
The trip to the moon was worth the struggle. Though that’s easy to say from here. With more confidence we say that the story, and this movie, directed by Damien Chazelle and written by Josh Singer and James R. Hansen, were worth the wait.
And two more words: Kyle Chandler. Man, oh, man, Kyle Chandler is cool.
Mothers hold their children in their arms. Humans reach for the stars. It’s not poetry. It’s life. It’s the simple and the impossible. The perfect and the terrifying.
It’s filmmaking at its most grand. It’s a story you hold close. --TK
Wednesday, November 28, 2018