By The hotly hyped First Man, Ryan Gosling and Whiplash and La La Land director Damien Chazelle's biopic of Neil Armstrong and the story of the Apollo 11 mission, had its first screening at the Venice Film Festival last night, and far from coming crashing to Earth under the weight of expectation, it sounds like it's exactly as good as everyone's been hoping.
The Hollywood Reporter says it's a "sober, contemplative picture" with "emotional involvement, visceral tension and, yes, even suspense, in addition to stunning technical craft", while the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called it "visually ravishing" film full of "certainty and verve". Claire Foy, who plays Armstrong's wife Janet, has drawn a lot of plaudits, as has Gosling's understated portrayal of the internal, focused, slightly alien Armstrong.
A second trailer touched down on YouTube yesterday too, and compared to the first it focuses much more on the theoretical and engineering legwork required to send humanity to the moon than the first does, as well as sketching the Armstrong family out a little more and giving a tantalising peek at the Armstrong's-eye-view finale on the lunar surface. There's some impeccable Gosling Seriousface™ on display too.
