While talking with a friend last night about First Man, I remembered that I never mentioned my response to the film in this space.

It’s a beautiful film.

Viewers (well, most of them) probably come into the theater expecting The Right Stuff or some other glorification of male achievement…waging the space race…beating the Russians…all that jazz. After all, this is–ostensibly–the story of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

Yet, this is a character study.

Instead of history looming large and the men playing traditional heroes (with weaknesses they have to confront or overcome to reach their goal — traditional Aristotle and Campbell’s Hero Journey), the frame is inverted.

History is the backdrop for this exploration of a fascinating, complex, and somewhat closed man. That’s a really hard thing to achieve. I loved the interplay between astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and his wife Janet (Claire Foy) and the way the “wife” is a real character (imagine that!).

This is a beautiful and, at times, haunting film.