Summary:
A look at the life of Neil Armstrong as he navigates the trials of Project Gemini and then prepares for the historic Apollo 11 Mission.
My Thoughts:
I grew up watching the stars.
My Dad is a huge space nerd, and I say that with every ounce of love and affection that I can muster. I still remember looking through his telescope as he showed me the rings of Saturn, watching the skies for iridium flares, or when he got a solar filter so that we could look at sunspots. I remember renting HBO’s documentary series “From the Earth to the Moon” from our local library, watching it with Dad, and eating up every episode with hunger (that was probably one of the first documentaries I ever sat through). I witnessed a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral when I was a boy, and that blinding brilliant light will forever be burned into my memories. It was only right that I saw this film with my Dad too, and I’m incredibly glad I did. Perhaps it was all the subconsciously attached memories and emotions that came with this story that made me love it so much, but I honestly felt that this film is extremely close to perfect.
Uh, I guess spoilers?
If you were the one person on Earth that didn’t know we made it to the moon, I feel bad that you found out here…
“That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.”
After the death of his daughter Karen (Lucy Stafford), Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling, “Drive”) applies for a position on NASA’s space program. His wife Janet (Claire Foy, “Unsane”) meanwhile, struggles to deal with the death of their daughter while adjusting to their new highly publicized life. As Neil goes through the program, and his fellow astronauts fall prey to various mishaps and crashes, he wrestles with the fact that he might not come home from the moon if things don’t go according to plan.
I suppose I’ll start with my only negative about this entire movie, and really I have a hard time saying that this is a negative element, because I know it was done intentionally… but… I really didn’t care too much for the cinematography. Probably about 70% of the shots were extreme close-ups and done with shaky cam. The result was probably exactly what director Damien Chazelle (“Whiplash”) was going for- it felt intense, claustrophobic, and entirely unsafe. However, it was also hard to see what was going on sometimes. Almost anytime the rocket was in flight, the camera shook so heavily that if you were to pause and look at a single frame it would probably be nothing more than a motion blur. Again, I understand that that was probably an intentional choice meant to make the viewer feel as if they were inside that tiny spacecraft with Neil and his fellow astronauts, but it was still difficult to see what was going on sometimes. I can’t fully fault the movie because I know it was done intentionally, but it didn’t work for me completely.
As far as story goes, this has two concurrent storylines: Neil’s struggle to recover from the death of his daughter and the struggles he faces with his personal life, and Neil’s journey to the moon. The struggle to recover from the death of his daughter aspect reminded me heavily of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity”, in which Sandra Bullock plays an astronaut trying to get over the death of her child. The directing choices in a lot of scenes felt similar: turbulence seemed to represent the initial shock of having a loved one torn away, the trials of the flight are the months after the loved one dies trying to adjust, and the landing (on the moon in this film or on Earth in “Gravity”’s case) seem to be representative of recovery, or at least acceptance. This part of the story also takes a deep look at the difficulties loosing a child can inflict on the surviving parents. Claire Foy does a great job of showing real emotion while never coming off as weak or hysterical. We get a sense that, while Neil was the one in the rocket, she was feeling just as much tension as he. There are some great moments between Neil and his children as well; for most of the story, the children are too young to fully comprehend the gravity of what their father is doing. Towards the end of the film, however, Neil’s eldest son seems to finally get a sense of what his father is setting out to accomplish. In that moment, the eldest son shakes Neil’s hand, a shake that is simultaneously representative of his eldest son growing up and having true respect for his father, and also accepting the possibility that he may never see his father again. It’s an incredibly powerful scene.
At the same time this is happening, we’re shown Neil navigating through first Project Gemini and then eventually through the Apollo missions. While this storyline has been covered multiple times before, it’s rare that we get such a personal look at the man in the spacesuit, and the toll that each and every death and accident took on his psyche and that of his family. Gosling is wonderful as Armstrong. As always, Gosling plays the silent, calm, and collected type- a type of role that he’s sort of gravitated towards in the past few years (“Drive”, “Only God Forgives”, “La La Land”). He plays the role with great sincerity, showing Armstrong’s obsessive commitment to the program while constantly wrestling with the cost, both in lives and dollars.
Another aspect I liked about this film was that it addressed the question of why we want to travel into space- what does it really do for us? The film does a good job of portraying both sides of the argument, for and against space travel- though, as might be expected it leans towards the idea that space travel is important. There’s a scene near the beginning of the film where the board members of NASA ask Neil why he wants to be an astronaut and why he thinks it’s important. He responds that when he was in a test program he was able to go outside Earth’s atmosphere and from that height he was able to get a fresh perspective. He says that he isn’t sure what rewards space travel will come with, but he’s sure that it will give the human race a different perspective on our circumstances. In opposition to that, we’re shown glimpses of the people that criticized NASA for the amount of taxpayer dollars spent and the lives lost. There’s a great scene where an African American protestor reads a poem about how while he and his brothers and sisters starve, ‘whitey is on the moon.’ We’re shown differing opinions about what could’ve been done with the money. We’re even shown real interview footage with people discussing their distaste for the project, including, to my great surprise, a clip featuring Kurt Vonnegut (author of great books like Slaughterhouse Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions). The clip with Vonnegut was a huge surprise (I’m a big fan), as I’d always assumed from the author’s writing that he was a big supporter of NASA. The way that this film at least addresses the criticisms of the program makes it feel more realistic and topical.
Beyond the story and social commentary, there was also a huge supporting cast; from Kyle Chandler (“Game Night”) to Jason Clarke (“Serenity”); Christopher Abbot (“Sweet Virginia”) to Corey Stoll (“Ant Man”), everybody in this film nailed their performances. They kept calm but instilled tension into every scene, as professionals would be expected to do in the situations they were in. The soundtrack was also pretty incredible; there were lots of moments that felt lyrically dreamlike, but it always maintained the amount of tension throughout the scenes.
Verdict:
This will be a tough film to beat as far as my pick for my favorite film of the year (though we’ll see in the long run- we’ve had a ton of great films this year, and a lot more are still on the way). For me personally, it was nostalgic and emotional, while at the same time being dreamlike and wishful. This is a movie that gets it when it comes to space travel. It’s not just about the small scientific discoveries we make every time we expand our horizons, it’s about furthering mankind’s knowledge of the universe as we know it, about figuring out where we fit in the scope of things not matter what the cost.
JFK in his famous Moon speech at Rice University on September 12th, 1962 quoted William Bradford (one of the founders of Plymouth Colony) saying, “All great and honorable actions are accompanied by great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.” He went on to say what I believe is one of the most inspirational quotes ever spoken about any kind of exploration in general: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”
This movie is not just a testament to the men and women that helped get Apollo 11 to the moon, but a testament to the willpower of mankind, and what hard work and diligence can accomplish when our best and brightest work together. This is a film about overcoming difficulties, expanding horizons, and the tenacity of the human race.
I loved this film; see it as soon as you can.
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