Moon

I’m going to do something I’ve never done before and recommend you don’t read this review. Instead go off and watch Moon with no expectations and as little knowledge as you can muster about what happens, and just let it wash over you. However despite that recommendation I’m here to write a review, so write one I will!

It’s necessary to talk around Moon as revealing too much would spoil the film, so you’ll have to forgive me for being deliberately obtuse in this review.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, who’s nearing the end of a three-year solo stint on the Moon. He’s the sole human part of a massive mining operation that harvests Helium-3 from the Lunar surface and sends it back to Earth as a source of pollution free energy. While most of it’s automated, Sam is needed for essential repairs and other duties. He’s only got two weeks left before he’s due to go home, but after three years with only video messages from his wife and a robot named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company, he’s incredibly lonely. However after an accident thing take an unexpected that questions everything Sam believes in.

And that’s all the plot information you’re getting, other than to say that the film takes plenty of interesting and surprising turns over its relatively brief 96 minute runtime. Whereas most modern sci-fi is all about the effects, this harks back more to 60s and early 70s science fiction, such as Dark Star, Outland and 2001: A Space Odyssey (the film was visually inspired by the Kubrick movie and Hal definitely provided the template for Gerty), where it was all about the ideas. At its best sci-fi explores the human condition by creating situations that are far removed from everyday life, but which highlights certain aspects of humanity that it’s often difficult to deal with in other ways.

This is certainly what moon does, dealing with loneliness, mortality and taking fascinating jaunts into the existential. While that makes is sound rather worthy, it’s also a very entertaining film. Despite having a tiny budget, director Duncan Jones (who I think it’s compulsory to mention is David Bowie’s son), stretches the money to breaking point to create a visually striking film, with some nifty but cleverly integrated effects and a plot that tells a fascinating story. However where it really succeeds is in the ideas that it generates in the viewers mind.

After watching Moon my mind was racing with the thoughts and feeling the movie provoked. It’s a film that loves confounding the viewer’s expectations, although that said this isn’t a film that’s just about endless twists. There are surprises, but most of them are about extending and exploring the movie’s themes, rather than just doing it for the sake of it.

Also deserving a lot of praise is Sam Rockwell, who delivers an incredibly impressive performance, which even on its own presents some fascinating existential questions. It’s tough to tell you exactly why, but suffice to say he does a stirling job in a role that starts off seeming challenging simply because he’s the only person on screen most of the time but soon becomes even more interesting as the plot begins to unveil its mysteries.

It’s also nice that despite its twists and questioning of what we believe to be real, Moon never leaves the plausible. It’s all the more powerful because nothing ever happens that seems impossible, even if we can’t do it at the moment.

Admittedly it’s not the greatest sci-fi film ever made, but it is a gem and a very worthy addition to a subgenre that’s become a bit of an endangered species – intelligent science fiction, where what’s going on inside the character’s heads is more important than the setting and special effects.

Just go watch it, preferably with some other people, and then discuss.

Overall Verdict: An excellent little film that’ll leave you with more to think about than any of the bloated sci-fi blockbusters of the past few years.

Reviewer: Phil Caine