Moon (2009)

Who’d have thought a breath of fresh air would come from outer space, of all places? Duncan Jones’s film Moon hearkens back to the sort of classic science fiction written by Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov—the kind where the science is there to help the fiction along, and isn’t the whole point. Oh, stuff happens in Moon, and some of it is very odd indeed. But this is a film about ideas, not actions—a refreshing throwback to when the main sci-fi question was “what if?” rather than “wouldn’t this look cool?”

The story, set in a nearish future, concerns Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), who lives on a special base on the far side of the moon. The base is the center of operation for a program which harvests a special form of helium from the moon’s surface and ships it back to Earth to be used in making clean energy. All of this is done by automation: huge harvesters roam the moon, radioing the base when they have a full load, which Sam goes out in a lunar rover to collect. Nominally, Sam is an astronaut. In reality, he’s a maintenance man. He is there to keep things running, collect the cargo, and fix any problems. He’s also alone. Sam’s only friend is the base computer, GERTY, which roams the base using tracks in the ceiling, has emoticons for a face, and speaks in the soothingly reasonable tones of Kevin Spacey. There is no live feed home. Occasionally, Sam gets recorded messages from his wife back on Earth. She sends pictures of their young daughter and taped football games.

Sam has been at this for years. He signed on for a three-year hitch, which, as the story opens, is almost up. Not a moment too soon, either – Sam isn’t feeling too well. He’s starting to see strange things around the base, causing him to lose focus. This leads to a nasty moon rover accident. Sam wakes up back at the base infirmary, rescued by GERTY, and woozy but otherwise OK. Returning to the scene of the accident, Sam makes a very strange discovery: there’s another injured man out there. A man who looks an awful lot like…well, like Sam. Is something going on, or is Sam just cracking up from too long alone? And why does GERTY seem to know a little more than he’s telling? How can a man who can’t talk to anyone live back home find out the truth?

The answers to these riddles unspool slowly, and, it turns out, with a certain logic. Along the way, the movie gently touches on questions of identity (who are you when you’re alone?), loyalty (what kind of guy signs up to leave his family for three years on the moon?), and corporate ethics (what kind of company lets a guy do that, and how should they treat him when he does?). This sort of stuff could become preachy, but Moon avoids that pitfall. It doesn’t hit us with issues, but lets them drift to the surface (a few ethical issues remain entirely in the background).

Rockwell has been slowly establishing a reputation as one of our better character actors (he’s pulled off supporting roles in everything from Shakespeare to Stephen King to Douglas Adams). Given a movie to carry more or less on his own (and indeed mostly more), he rises to the occasion in fine style. Rockwell makes Sam Bell a real individual: he has a sense of humor, but also a bit of a temper. He loves his wife, but was willing to leave for three years. He’s alarmed by his new strange circumstances, but doesn’t go over-the-top crazy. He’s a smart, reasonable man confronted with odd developments. It’s solid work, and it helps ground the film.

Spacey is an asset to the film as well. Spacey can do bland inscrutability with the best of them, and that serves him well as GERTY. GERTY is as implacable as any computer in these sorts of movies, but he never seems to be a HAL-style hobgoblin. He’s also not omniscient, which is a key factor at several points in the story. His primary directive is to help Sam—but help, of course, comes in many forms…

Duncan Jones directs the film in a straightforward style, letting circumstance, not effects, provide the thrills and chills. It’s not surprising that Jones knows his way around sci-fi, given that his father likes it, too (his dad is named David Jones, though you know him better as David Bowie). But Jones also shows a sure hand for plain human drama. He knows how to generate tension even when a man is alone, by letting a shot linger on the sharp point of a modeling knife or a jet of scalding-hot water. The story is a Jones original, and if there’s a fault to the film it’s that there’s not quite enough story for the movie’s length. Even at just a little over 90 minutes, Moon seems to spin its wheels a little in some middle sections, revisiting points that have already been made.

The look of the film is better than perhaps its budget deserves, and its design pays homage to classic films like 2001 and Alien. Sam’s moonbase home really looks lived in, and is a trove of nice, unobtrusive touches, especially about Sam’s sense of humor. He tapes a “kick me” sign to GERTY, and, having nicknamed the four harvesting machines for the four evangelists, renames “Luke” “Judas” because it never works properly. There is also ping-pong table lying around, with two paddles. Think about it.

At a time when space operas and space junk seem to rule the sci-fi roost, it’s a real pleasure to see a competently-made piece of science fiction that aims for the brain rather than the gut. If you like classic science fiction and/or good acting, this one is worth looking for.