First Man (2018) * *

Directed by:  Damien Chazelle

Starring:  Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Shea Whigham, Patrick Fugit, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke

As much as Damien Chazelle's previous two efforts, Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016) extolled truths about human nature, First Man curiously lacks humanity.   The movie nails the technical aspects while shortchanging the people.    The scenes in space, on the moon, and in the tiny, claustrophobia-inducing space shuttles make us feel like we are authentically there, but what we don't feel is anything for its subject.    First Man keeps us outside of Neil Armstrong and without a human reason compelling us to care, First Man is a flat exercise in spectacular visuals. 

Ryan Gosling (also in Chazelle's La La Land) plays Armstrong as a cold, emotionally-repressed pilot who jumps headlong into NASA's moon mission to forget about the death of his two-year-old daughter from a brain tumor.    The early scenes with the daughter and Armstrong's response to her death are powerful, but after those, there is no more where that came from.   Like Armstrong himself, the movie mutes its emotions and concentrates on the trial and error which eventually led to the successful Apollo 11 launch in July 1969.    I normally find scenes in which experts ply their trade fascinating, but in First Man the genesis of the space program isn't stirring as much as confusing.    I think I know what the Gemini missions were supposed to accomplish, but I am not sure I could pass a test on them.    It also took me a while to get the other astronauts straight. 

Armstrong's strong wife Janet (Foy) has dealt with the death of her daughter in a more healthy manner, and she has one or two very good scenes in which she lays down the law to Armstrong and his bosses, especially when NASA shuts off the broadcast which allows her to listen in on her husband's mission from home.    Don't get me wrong.   I don't need an actor to explain his emotions in lots of dialogue.   A nonverbal cue can be every bit as powerful as a half-page of speech, but Gosling is lifeless.    It's as if he was directed to expend as little emotional energy as possible. 

We feel the rattling of the spacecraft after it launches and speeds towards space.    Once in space and eventually on the lunar surface, we sense how quiet and desolate those places are...and how scary it would be to be stranded there.    First Man gets that right in spades, but the mission may as well have been piloted by robots for all of the emotion we are allowed to invest in Armstrong and Aldrin.    The actors are more than capable in doing what is asked of them, but this is clearly a conscious choice by Chazelle to focus less on the people and more on the visual and sound effects, both of which could garner numerous technical awards at this year's Oscars.

There was a small amount of controversy, mostly stirred up by conservative pundits who noted the actual planting of the American flag was left out of the movie.    Well, not to worry flag enthusiasts and fetish patriots, the American flag is shown in abundance in First Man, as emblems on the astronaut's uniforms or even in wide angle shots of the flag on the moon.    There just isn't a scene visualizing Armstrong and Aldrin planting the flag there.    Trust me, the lack of a flag planting scene is the least of my worries about First Man, which is disappointing for many other more important reasons than the placing of the flag on the moon.