FIRST MAN

recent film, , Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle has managed to do something remarkable: take one of the greatest achievements in all humankind and render it as cold as space itself. Astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) sacrifices much and faces incredible challenges on did 35 years prior, pulls back the curtain to share previously unknown chapters of the frequently idealized, glamorized space program, and to its credit the movie succeeds in educating us. Both flight tests and space exploration are painstakingly recreated with elaborate special effects techniques, and the results come across as truly authentic. This is not a documentary, however, but a biography and historical chronicle, and too often the underlying human drama seems elusive, or altogether lacking. With his locked-down emotions, Armstrong was the perfect candidate for such a high-stress endeavor, but he remains an enigmatic figure as well as a tough sell as the central character in a cinematic epic.