Like Singer's earlier movies Spotlight and The Post, First Man patiently unwraps the complex layers of this true story, laying bare without technobabble the technical challenges that go into spaceflight. Before they can do that, they have to get into space without blowing up. Before the space-farers can go to the moon, they have to dock two craft. Chazelle and writer Josh Singer remain focused intently on the small steps that led to the giant leap, and it's captivating. While the film touches on the personal loves of those involved, the only truly important thing is the mission. And the hidden figures remain mostly hidden.ДЄpollo 11 moon landing: Neil Armstrong's defining moment See all photos First Man all but smooths out any ambition or ruthlessness in these men. There's no room here for the pilots' improprieties recounted in books like The Astronaut Wives Club, no mention of the many astronaut divorces, or even of the thousands of backroom staff members who contributed to the space programme. Gosling's understated, internal-facing performance is deftly pitched, though the subtlety means that when climactic emotional catharsis comes, it almost seemsВ tooВ big.ДЄrmstrong was a famously humble, stolid man who refused to court the limelight, but surely you don't get to be the guy who crowns human achievement just by asking nicely. Slowly, the layers are drawn back to reveal hints of the man and emotion inside - and even a glimpse of a sense of humour. Foy is intensely sympathetic even as she's forced through the motions of the biopic bingo card: slammed doors, lip-quivering outbursts and wordless reconciliations familiar from a thousand and one other movies about brilliant dudes. As this first man dedicates himself to his very important man work in his close-mouthed man way, it's easy to sympathise when his wife grows frustrated.Д¬laire Foy does most of the emotional heavy lifting portraying Neil's wife Janet Armstrong as vulnerable yet steely, and as driven in her own way as her husband. Gosling plays Armstrong the astronaut as a self-contained cypher, an unflappable engineer whose crew-cut concentration borders on robotic. Only in space do they find silence and peace.ДЄs with Chazelle's previous stories of male obsession, Whiplash and La La Land - and let's face it, most biopics - First Man is the story of a driven man whose sacrifices for a vision include lovers and family. It's only when the astronauts escape the shackles of Earth that the camera, and the characters, become still. This distractingly twitching lens suggests Armstrong and his ilk are more at home thousands of miles up with their lives on the line than they are in their actual homes, talking about their feelings with the people they love. It feels natural and intimate, although the bouncing and bobbing gets a bit much when you're just trying to watch two people talking in a kitchen. The handheld camera bobs along close behind the characters' shoulders, giving it the feel of retro home movies. Perhaps surprisingly, the camera is even more jittery on the ground than when blasting through space. You feel every nerve-racking moment of this situation you'd never otherwise experience. We're locked inside the creaking, juddering, rattling capsules with Armstrong and his fellow astronauts, alarms squealing, dials going crazy and the sky yawing alarmingly in the corner of our eye.ДЇlashes of the tiniest details, such as rows of vulnerable rivets on the capsule wall, combine with expertly crafted sound design - unexplained bangs and terrifying metallic groans giving way to sudden all-encompassing silence - to make this a tour de force of immersive cinema. Chazelle stays away from wide shots to make First Man a distinctly first-person experience. The film is assembled with a measured and meticulous assurance, much like Armstrong himself. As cockpit and capsule lids close on the astronauts, we spend whole sections of the film barely able to see anything but unblinking instruments, slivers of sky and star Ryan Gosling's eyes darting behind the glass of his helmet. To do that, Chazelle largely shuts us in with Armstrong.

Now playing: Watch this: NASA at 60: How America's space agency reached for the.

Earliest man on the moon movie