Genre: Science Fiction, Drama
Director: Duncan Jones
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey
Running Time: 97 minutes (plus trailers)
“You’ve been up here too long”
In the vein of celebrated space movies from the 1970’s and 80’s, which include Alien, Solaris and Silent Running, Moon, the first feature film from commercial director Duncan Jones (the son of musician David Bowie) is a slowly paced contemplative drama that uses the isolated lunar setting to explore themes of madness, grief and loneliness. Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, an astronaut who for almost three years has been stationed on an otherwise unmanned mining base on the moon, kept company only by a robotic companion named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). With no live communication to the Earth available, Sam spends his days inspecting machinery, building a model city and talking to his plants, all the while pining for his wife and infant daughter back home on Earth.
But with only two weeks to go before his contract expires and he is due to return home, Sam finds another human in the base; someone who looks and sounds exactly like him. Unsure of whether he can trust GERTY, the other Sam or his shady employers at Lunar Industries, Sam begins to fear that the rescue team being sent to take him home has no intention of letting him leave, while the audience is left to wonder about the exact nature of the other Sam – is he a ghost, a clone or simply a creation of the protagonist’s failing mind? Of course, the film is far less concerned with the answer to that question, prefering to deal with loftier explorations of humanity and reality. Moon is a modest film grounded in ideas rather than in action or spectacle, and it serves as a welcome reminder that the science fiction genre can be both engaging and thought provoking, and can appeal to an audience outside of bespectacled fan-boys and internet bloggers (no disrespect meant...obviously)
But first and foremost, praise must be given to Sam Rockwell, who quite literally carries the entire film on his shoulders. As the only human character in the movie (discounting brief video clips from earth), if the audience was not sympathetic to Bell, the whole story would fall apart. Thankfully, Rockwell gives an astounding performance, capturing Bell’s edgy loneliness with consummate skill. Furthermore, once the two different Bell’s take centre stage, Rockwell manages to imbue the two of them with distinctly different personalities whilst keeping them both identifiable, a feat for which I think he deserves an Oscar nomination (a hope shared by many people, although unlikely to ever come to fruition). Kevin Spacey is also perfect as the cold and emotionless voice of GERTY (it’s sort of hard to believe no one thought of this casting earlier), a character who is a very obvious inspired at least partially by HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (although to be fair, there is barely a computer character in modern sci-fi who was not).
With a budget of only $5 million (a pittance by Hollywood standards, especially for a science fiction movie), director Duncan Jones has done a remarkable job combining practical and computer effects to create an strikingly visual film. While the CGI is always very clearly CGI, the way Jones has successfully blended it with model work and actual sets will almost have you believing anyway. The interior of the base looks great, and simply by setting this movie in space Jones allows for many memorable shots of the lunar surface and the far-away earth. Adding to the films ethereal beauty is an appropriately eerie score from Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain), who continues to produce some of the most distinctive and haunting film music of the modern era.
I suppose one complaint of Moon could be that it is somewhat slow, and that not a whole lot actually takes place. But truth be told, that’s one of the things I really enjoyed about it. As I said before, it’s not an action movie or even really a thriller. This is a character driven film – a movie centred around people and ideas. So while it might not always be exciting, Moon never fails to be interesting. And quite frankly, the fact that this movie has been made at all, especially on such a small budget and outside the Hollywood system should be an inspiration for anyone who has dreams of becoming a film maker, and of having their own ideas realized on the big screen. Moon is an original film, a great start for a promising young director, and I have no hesitancy in recommending it to anyone who enjoys a good story with good ideas behind it.
Moon is currently playing in Melbourne in limited release, in theatres including The Nova in Carlton and The Rivoli in Camberwell. Seek it out.
Director: Duncan Jones
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey
Running Time: 97 minutes (plus trailers)
“You’ve been up here too long”
In the vein of celebrated space movies from the 1970’s and 80’s, which include Alien, Solaris and Silent Running, Moon, the first feature film from commercial director Duncan Jones (the son of musician David Bowie) is a slowly paced contemplative drama that uses the isolated lunar setting to explore themes of madness, grief and loneliness. Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, an astronaut who for almost three years has been stationed on an otherwise unmanned mining base on the moon, kept company only by a robotic companion named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). With no live communication to the Earth available, Sam spends his days inspecting machinery, building a model city and talking to his plants, all the while pining for his wife and infant daughter back home on Earth.But with only two weeks to go before his contract expires and he is due to return home, Sam finds another human in the base; someone who looks and sounds exactly like him. Unsure of whether he can trust GERTY, the other Sam or his shady employers at Lunar Industries, Sam begins to fear that the rescue team being sent to take him home has no intention of letting him leave, while the audience is left to wonder about the exact nature of the other Sam – is he a ghost, a clone or simply a creation of the protagonist’s failing mind? Of course, the film is far less concerned with the answer to that question, prefering to deal with loftier explorations of humanity and reality. Moon is a modest film grounded in ideas rather than in action or spectacle, and it serves as a welcome reminder that the science fiction genre can be both engaging and thought provoking, and can appeal to an audience outside of bespectacled fan-boys and internet bloggers (no disrespect meant...obviously)
But first and foremost, praise must be given to Sam Rockwell, who quite literally carries the entire film on his shoulders. As the only human character in the movie (discounting brief video clips from earth), if the audience was not sympathetic to Bell, the whole story would fall apart. Thankfully, Rockwell gives an astounding performance, capturing Bell’s edgy loneliness with consummate skill. Furthermore, once the two different Bell’s take centre stage, Rockwell manages to imbue the two of them with distinctly different personalities whilst keeping them both identifiable, a feat for which I think he deserves an Oscar nomination (a hope shared by many people, although unlikely to ever come to fruition). Kevin Spacey is also perfect as the cold and emotionless voice of GERTY (it’s sort of hard to believe no one thought of this casting earlier), a character who is a very obvious inspired at least partially by HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (although to be fair, there is barely a computer character in modern sci-fi who was not).With a budget of only $5 million (a pittance by Hollywood standards, especially for a science fiction movie), director Duncan Jones has done a remarkable job combining practical and computer effects to create an strikingly visual film. While the CGI is always very clearly CGI, the way Jones has successfully blended it with model work and actual sets will almost have you believing anyway. The interior of the base looks great, and simply by setting this movie in space Jones allows for many memorable shots of the lunar surface and the far-away earth. Adding to the films ethereal beauty is an appropriately eerie score from Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain), who continues to produce some of the most distinctive and haunting film music of the modern era.
I suppose one complaint of Moon could be that it is somewhat slow, and that not a whole lot actually takes place. But truth be told, that’s one of the things I really enjoyed about it. As I said before, it’s not an action movie or even really a thriller. This is a character driven film – a movie centred around people and ideas. So while it might not always be exciting, Moon never fails to be interesting. And quite frankly, the fact that this movie has been made at all, especially on such a small budget and outside the Hollywood system should be an inspiration for anyone who has dreams of becoming a film maker, and of having their own ideas realized on the big screen. Moon is an original film, a great start for a promising young director, and I have no hesitancy in recommending it to anyone who enjoys a good story with good ideas behind it.
Moon is currently playing in Melbourne in limited release, in theatres including The Nova in Carlton and The Rivoli in Camberwell. Seek it out.
