First Man (2018)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Neil Armstrong	Ryan Gosling
Janet Shearon Armstrong	Zoe Kazan	½
Ed White	Jason Clarke
Deke Slayton	Kyle Chandler	½
Buzz Aldrin	Corey Stoll
Rick Armstrong	Gavin Warren
Jim Lovell	Pablo Shreiber
David Scott	Christopher Abbott
Elliot See	Patrick Fugit
Michael Collins	Lukas Haas
Gus Grissom	Shea Whigham
Joseph A. Walker	Brian d'Arcy James
Roger B. Chaffee	Cory Michael Smith
Christopher C. Kraft Jr.	J. D. Evermore
John Glenn	John David Whalen
Pete Conrad	Ethan Embry
Robert R. Gilruth	Ciarán Hinds

Review

Starting in medias res and running straight into familiar biopic quagmires of family problems and the wife left behind, First Man takes a little while to really get going. There is quite a bit of NASA diplomacy and technicalities during the film's first third, and add to that Ryan Gosling's usual underplayed acting style, it takes some time before we really start rooting for Neil Armstrong. The film finally takes off (sic) once Armstrong and co-pilot David Scott embark on the Gemini 8 mission. And from then on, First Man is a taut, suspenseful and at times momentous document of an unprecedented historical era. There's melancholy in getting to share the sense of hope and future that these young men had in the wake of their accomplishments. I doubt that the next 50 years unfolded the way they had envisioned.