Why biopics suck even on the moon

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On the site "Birth Movies Death", there's an interesting review about the bioic "First Man", which covers Neill Armstrong's landing on the moon:

 

The earliest days of U.S. space exploration is one of the most fascinating chapters of human history, a determined effort of scientists with a limited timetable achieving landmark breakthroughs previously thought unimaginable as the world placed the closest scrutiny upon them. This famously culminated in the Apollo 11 moon landing, with Neil Armstrong acting as the first human ambassador to a heavenly body. It therefore makes a certain amount of sense that Armstrong would be a focal point for NASA historians and those who would attempt to fictionalize the events of the Gemini and Apollo programs, so a film like First Man was always inevitable and, quite frankly, overdue if you don’t count more holistic portrayals. And yet director Damien Chazelle and writer Josh Singer don’t really seem to have a grasp on what makes Armstrong such a fascinating figure in the space race, and this leaves a hole where the heart of the film should be. [...] So with that strong of a thesis on the terror of the space program, why does First Man feel so cold, so distant from emotional resonance? Paradoxically, it’s the first man himself that causes the thematic weight of the film to unravel. It’s not that Ryan Gosling gives a poor performance as Neil Armstrong – far from it, he delivers an appropriately reserved, contemplative representation of the astronaut – but his arc feels so shoehorned into this story of human accomplishment that it actually verges on offensive. Chazelle’s take on Armstrong is that he was fundamentally changed by the death of his toddler daughter to the point of burying himself into his work, which is not only a misrepresentation the job-loving flight geek Armstrong was in reality, but it acts as a contrived mechanism to make the tragic losses of his coworkers personal rather than communal. This is exemplified through the underdeveloped personas of Edward Higgins White (Jason Clarke), Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler), Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll), and numerous other astronauts of historic significance, who are all on-screen long enough for you to get an idea of who they are but not long enough to develop dimension as actual witnesses and participants in the events that unfold. Neil Armstrong is a remarkable figure precisely because he is such an unremarkable person whose focus and humility enabled him to achieve greatness in his field, but First Man focuses on Armstrong with a prophetic air of destiny that disserves the lives of the men it glorifies through their deaths. This, of course, climaxes with the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon, but it feels oddly truncated to make room for a comically absurd conclusion to Armstrong’s arc that misses the moon for the moon rocks. Chazelle willfully ignores any sense of universal accomplishment for the sake of focusing on Armstrong, which doesn’t so much feel intimate as restrictive. First Man isn’t a bad film in the sense that it’s poorly made; it’s actually a huge accomplishment in conveying the terrors of extraterrestrial flight. But it’s very clear that this needed to be a film about humanistic accomplishment, and instead First Man puts all the onus on one man whose most defining characteristic was that he distanced himself from the idea he was of any particular importance. The result is a film that replaces humanity with a cold nothingness, and unfortunately nothing fills that vacuum. (Birth Movies Death)

 

I've written about this before, so I'll keep it short. Biopics have the huge disdvantage that, being a story, they want their hero to have an arc. But real lives don't have arcs. Therefore, you need to construct one. In some cases this easies than in others, and a story about the moon landing is obviously having a kind of high point with the actual landing. 

 

However, that alone is no guarantee for a good story. You need a supporting cast, and those fucking biopics always want to have a "strong woman role", which in a period piece about a man accomplishing stuff means to be a good wife coping with the extraordinary circumstances. That's a problematic narrative even in the best of times, and when you add people that aren't really what you'd call "colorful" - such as Armstrong - you also need to introduce conflict. Oftentimes, this is done by letting people argue against the hero, which makes for bad drama because the outcome is a foregone conclusion and you're just stacking the deck in his favor. 

 

That's why I'm keeping clear of those. Usually, they're very good on the technical side of things - the actors are doing an oscar-worthy job of conveying a person, which is why those fuckers exist in the first place, the clothing is period accurate, the film making is solid, etc. etc. But they're boring and they're distorting history. If I want a good story, I'm going to fiction. If I want history, I watch a documentary. Don't try to mix the two.