'Moon' shines on British sci-fi landscape.
By Joyce Glasser - 16/07/2009
The British science fiction movie, Moon, from first time director Duncan Jones is more akin to Solaris than Sunshine. References to David Bowie’s 1969 sci-fi music video Space Oddity and 1976 sci-fi film, the Man who Fell to Earth aren’t amiss either because Jones is Bowie’s son. However, there’s probably more Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter than 2001 A Space Odyssey in Nathan Parker’s script as the film is a two-hander in which an former astronaut (Sam Rockwell) starts to question who has the power in his dealings with a robot (Kevin Spacey’s voice)
Sam Bell is now working for Lunar Industries which harvests 70% of the earth’s clean energy needs from the moon. Sam is its only employee stationed on the moon for routine operations. Gerty is Bell’s omnipotent robot that acts like a servant, nursemaid, barber, technician and source of information. As Bell looks forward to the end of his three year contract and the reunion with his wife and baby daughter, strange and frightening things begin to happen to him. As the film opens Sam remarks that he’s talking to himself with increasing regularity, but conversation with another person is just what Sam needs if he is to see his daughter again. For what Sam learns causes him to question his relationship with Gerty and the integrity of Lunar Industries.
Working with a low budget Jones has created a convincing space module, cold and clinical enough to make anyone homesick, with pathetic attempts to create a homely atmosphere. Spacey has just the right tone of voice for Gerty, who gives nothing away but a hint of deadpan humour and a touch of dread. Rockwell is also excellent, but I still wonder whether he has the star quality to carry a movie. In Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Rockwell played a man with two lives, a television producer by day and CIA agent by night. Here, his virtuosity impresses again, this time with a split persona, playing essentially two people simultaneously who are essentially the same. The film suffers from some plot holes, notably that a major company would ever get away with sending one person to live on the moon in isolation for three years, particularly a family man. Who would accept such a mission anyway? The film becomes a bit repetitive and slow to develop in the first half however it’s never dull. Jones and Parker have to be credited with adding something original and thought provoking to the British sci-fi landscape.