As NASA turns 60, Damien Chazelle's gripping new film "First Man" couldn't come at a better time.
The film, which stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, recounts man's quest to reach the moon and all the "small steps" it took to make it happen.
"First Man" takes place during a very specific time in Armstrong's life. It opens at the start of the 1960s, as Armstrong and his wife Janet (Clair Foy) deal with the death of their young daughter, Karen. Her death follows Armstrong through the course of the film.
From there, Armstrong joins the astronaut program in hopes of starting fresh. The film then chronicles his experience with the Gemini and Apollo programs—the missions, the tests. It all comes full circle as Armstrong readies for the Apollo 11 mission, the one that will eventually make him the first man to walk on the moon.
It's a hard-fought journey, riddled with mishaps and tragedies. The deaths of astronauts Gus Grissom (Shea Whigham), Ed White (Jason Clarke) and Roger Chaffee (Corey Michael Smith) during a test for the first Apollo mission in 1967. Armstrong's brush with death while operating a lunar-landing training vehicle in 1968.
The film's greatest strength is focusing on the real people who faced real dangers.
"First Man" also touches on the external pressures the program faced.
Space travel isn't cheap. And it certainly wasn't in the 60s. In fact, a significant portion of Americans at the time didn't fully support the lunar landing mission because they felt the cost was too great.
In fact, President John F. Kennedy's delivered his famous "moon speech" to drum up nationwide support for the Apollo program. A clip of the 1962 speech is included in "First Man."
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard," Kennedy says to a crowd at Rice University.
Kennedy's vision, of course, comes true.
Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) and Mike Collins (Lukas Haas) set off on the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, and scenes used in the film were shot on location in Central Florida.
In January, casting directors put out a call for extras and hired locals to fill a variety of roles.
Armstrong and Aldrin eventually land on the moon, and the whole world is watching.
It's an incredible feat, one that was made possible by numerous sacrifices.
And in "First Man" Armstrong takes it all in as he stands on the surface of the moon, looking back on a now tiny Earth.
"First Man" lands in theaters on October 12.
Director: Damien Chazelle
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Patrick Fugit, Christopher Abbott, Ciaran Hinds, Olivia Hamilton, Pablo Schreiber, Shea Whigham, Lukas Haas, Ethan Embry, Brian D'Arcy James, Corey Michael Smith, Kris Swanberg