If you’ve ever had dreams of being an astronaut, First Man might just shatter them. For Armstrong loses his young daughter at the beginning of the story, and the impact of her death pushes the devastated father into the depths of space. Armstrong is depicted as a man desperate to escape the horror of his household, and all of its painful memories. Ryan Gosling is an expert at portraying intense emotional repression, and manages to convey Armstrong’s heavy emotional burden with his trademark minimalism. While some of the scenes set on Earth tend to drag on somewhat, every single second in space is ridiculously engaging.

Source: Forbes October 13, 2018 17:34 UTC