First Man (2018)

Damien Chazelle is our American wunderkind. In many respects, he shares similarities with Xavier Dolan, the Canadian counterpart. They even kind of look alike. Chazelle takes a page out of Dolan's book with a format change a la Mommy. Except when Dolan does it, it's pretentious and forced, we watch a box format for the whole length of the movie so he has the chance to stretch it out in one scene. Chazelle does it more seamlessly, and with better finesse. The moon landing scene is filmed in glorious IMAX 70mm, while the rest of the movie is on beautiful grainy 35mm or 60mm. Film ain't dead.

Linus Sandgren's cinematography is breathtaking accompanied by Justin Hurwitz's hypnotic score. What's really extraordinary is how intense this movie is. Much like Chazelle's brilliant Whiplash, he manages to make something that is not obviously intense unbearably intense. Despite knowing how it's going to turn out, it is still exciting. We are fully immersed in the space missions, with the shaky cameras, close-up shots, and thrilling soundscape. We feel the anxiety that Gosling's enigmatic Neil Armstrong does when a mission fails. At the end of the day, it's not actually about the moon landing. It's a character study on the Armstrongs (yes, Janet too), one of whom happens to go to the moon. Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy are both excellent.