I was a mere 20 year-old in July 1969, but I can distinctly remember just how captivated everyone was by the Apollo 11 moon flight… watching ‘live’ television pictures (admittedly in black+white!) just seemed unreal in the extreme.
You’ll be pleased to know that they made it to the moon and back again (oh, you knew that didn’t you).
Ryan Gosling (of La La Land fame) played Neil Armstrong… quite brilliantly (in a monosyllabic way that apparently echoed Armstrong’s character in real life) and Claire Foy played his wife Janet (another very powerful, sensitive performance).
The film was excellent in the way that it conveyed the almost outrageous, win-at-all-costs mentality of the time… after the Russians had proudly boasted the first man in space and the first space walk. It also gave a very real sense of just how basic the equipment was… they might have had incredible, sophisticated computer technology (for that time) but riding in the metal spacecraft must have felt a lot like Wallace+Grommit’s contraption (from “A Grand Day Out”… and bloomin’ noisy at that!) than the sophisticated craft that we ‘experienced’ in, say, “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
As you might have anticipated, the film also emphasised the high intellect and bravery of all those involved in the mission (and its stark, life-threatening dangers)… but, for the first time, I got a very tangible sense of the programme’s affects on the families (lots of sacrifices – including lives – lots of pride, of course, and but also lots of damaged relationships). It seems that Armstrong was also hugely affected by the death of his daughter Karen (of a brain tumour) in 1962, aged three.
Mirroring our own austere times, the film also touches on the moral justification of spending huge amounts of money on the ‘space race’ when there are so many people suffering poverty in the USA and the rest of the world.
I think the film is brilliantly done (something of an epic). I was very much looking forward to seeing it and wasn’t disappointed. You need to see it (especially if you’re not as old as me).
PS: Some thirty-plus college students had been given ‘reserved’ seats in the cinema for the screening. Admittedly the film was quite long (2hrs 21 mins), but I have NEVER seen so many audience members shuffle out/climb over seats to go to the loo during the screening… and the VAST majority of these were the students. It felt like having a class of primary school children in the audience (or perhaps worse)! In addition, I noticed that most (true!) of them were checking their phones right up until the film started. Me? Old and grumpy? Surely not.
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