With Ryan Gosling currently rocketing through the cosmos in the hit film Project Hail Mary, it's the perfect time to revisit his first stellar voyage. Eight years prior, the actor teamed with director Damien Chazelle for First Man, a biographical drama chronicling Neil Armstrong's journey to become the first human to walk on the moon. While the newer film is a crowd-pleasing adventure, Gosling's initial space outing offered a radically different, and profoundly underappreciated, character study.
Chazelle's Audacious Pivot After La La Land
Fresh off the Oscar-winning success of La La Land, Damien Chazelle had the industry's permission to pursue any passion project. His choice surprised many: a historical drama about an American icon. Yet First Man was far from a conventional, flag-waving tribute. Instead, Chazelle crafted an intimate, often somber portrait of obsession, sacrifice, and the immense personal cost of historic achievement. The film traded triumphant fanfare for the visceral, claustrophobic reality of early spaceflight, a creative gamble that ultimately left some mainstream audiences and awards voters cold.
Gosling's Inscrutable Armstrong
Ryan Gosling's performance as Neil Armstrong stands as a masterclass in restrained acting. He portrays the astronaut not as a gung-ho hero, but as a deeply private, emotionally contained engineer grappling with profound personal tragedy. This interpretation, which framed Armstrong as an enigmatic figure consumed by his mission, proved divisive. For viewers expecting a more openly charismatic or celebratory lead, Gosling's internalized, minimalist approach was a stark departure. It continued the actor's lineage of brooding, isolated characters from films like Drive, but with a new layer of historical gravity and quiet desperation.
The Dark Side of the Space Race
First Man excels in contextualizing the Apollo program within the turbulent late 1960s. The film subtly underscores the irony of a nation pouring vast resources into beating the Soviets to the moon while confronting social unrest and conflict at home. Claire Foy delivers a powerhouse performance as Janet Armstrong, providing the emotional anchor as a wife witnessing her husband retreat into his work, risking his life with stoic detachment. The film's controversial omission of the flag-planting moment was consistent with its focus: this wasn't a story about national spectacle, but about the human experience behind it.
Gosling's work here represents a fascinating midpoint in his career evolution. It sits between his era-defining dramatic turns as a tortured loner and his later, brilliant comedic reinvention in films like The Nice Guys and Barbie. In First Man, he brings a grounded, unshowy depth that makes Armstrong's emotional thaw in the film's final, silent moments incredibly powerful. It's a performance that demands the viewer lean in, rewarding patience with profound emotional resonance.
A Legacy Worth Revisiting
While Chazelle is known for his bombastic, musical flair in projects like Babylon, First Man remains his most meditative and technically accomplished film. Its immersive sound design, shaky 16mm cinematography, and lack of grandiose score place the audience directly inside the capsule, making the danger feel terrifyingly real. The film is a sobering counterpoint to more optimistic space tales like Apollo 13 or the recent Lord & Miller's Project Hail Mary.
As Gosling continues to explore the final frontier in new projects, and as discussions about his potential future in franchises like Marvel's Ghost Rider persist, First Man stands as a crucial, complex entry in his filmography. It's a bold collaboration between a star and a director at the height of their powers, choosing psychological realism over mythmaking. For those who missed it or dismissed it in 2018, this nuanced space odyssey is ripe for rediscovery.
First Man is available to rent or purchase on major video-on-demand platforms.
