The film also features Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler and Corey Stoll as astronauts Ed White, Deke Slayton and Buzz Aldrin, all hailed as standouts by Jessica Kiang in The Playlist. "Being an astronaut's wife looks like a thankless role in real life and it's no great gift to an actress, but Claire Foy approaches the part with a matter-of-fact intelligence which gives a great deal of weight to Janet, who only died in June of this year," says Fionnuala Halligan for Screen International. "Foy brings emotional power to a woman who has been mostly sidelined by history, keeping a brave face at home for her children while constantly worrying that her husband, like so many of his peers, just won't come home one day," Alonso Duralde writes for TheWrap. It's a subdued, almost self-effacing performance that nonetheless provides the drama with a commanding center," writes Rooney.Ĭlaire Foy takes on Janet Armstrong, the astronaut's first wife and mother to his three children. "Gosling pulls you in on an intimate level, whether Armstrong is tackling life-or-death situations midmission or simply staring at the moon from his backyard, as if the distant image somehow holds the secret to a successful landing. Gosling's "natural charisma" could have been an issue here, but as David Rooney for The Hollywood Reporter points out, here it is downplayed to good effect. "The film suggests that this absence of a normal human boiling point is vital to his success: he stays cool and focused in the spacecraft under conditions that would reduce most people to a blinding panic." "Gosling gives a performance of muscular intelligence and decency as Armstrong, a man of calm and restraint, lacking what no one in the 1960s called emotional intelligence," writes Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian. Many of the reviews also praise Gosling and his fellow cast for their portrayals of Armstrong, his crewmates and family. The latter involves showing you something you see every day from a perspective that makes it newly strange," writes Collins. The former shows you something you haven't seen before. "Chazelle has opted to leave spectacle to the blockbusters and instead aims for awe - which is related, but different, and harder to pull off. Robbie Collins, writing for The Telegraph, also praised Chazelle's ability to reframe what audiences might know about Armstrong's story, making it feel new. Click to enlarge and view in a new window. "After seeing 'First Man,' it's doubtful you'll think about space flight, or Armstrong's historic walk, in quite the same way," says Gleiberman.
"The movie redefines what space travel is - the way it lives inside our imaginations - by capturing, for the first time, what the stakes really were."
"Damien Chazelle's film about Neil Armstrong's journey through the space program is a drama so revelatory in its realism that it shoots the moon," writes Owen Gleiberman for Variety. The film is based on the authorized biography by historian James Hansen, adapted by screenwriter Josh Singer.
12 - follows Armstrong's personal and professional life as he went from being a NASA research pilot to an astronaut and ultimately the first man to walk on the moon between 19. 29) - a month and a half before it opens wide in theaters on Oct. The movie, which debuted at the Venice International Film Festival in Italy on Wednesday (Aug. "First Man," Damien Chazelle's Neil Armstrong docudrama starring Ryan Gosling as the late Apollo astronaut, has lifted off, soaring high on the praise from its world premiere.