A powerful story and a masterful performance combine in a sci-fi classic

Rating: 8/10 (21 July 2010)

Moon is not just a smart movie. It's a movie that asks you to be smarter. Science fiction is one of the more bastardized genres in cinema, with about a jillion action movies with ray guns and monsters passing themselves off as sci fi. The essence of science fiction, though, is right there in the name. It's fiction that uses science and technology to illuminate human thought, deed and morality. Moon is as true to that ideal as any work of Bradbury, Asimov or Heinlein.
Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an astronaut. Well, he's not so much an astronaut as he is the caretaker of an automated mining camp on the far side of the moon. As machines that look like lunar combines harvest moon rock as a source of energy, Sam ventures out on his moon buggy to collect the full canisters of Helium 3 to ship back to Earth. As the story opens, Sam is finishing up his 3 year contract at the mining camp. He's the only human on the moon and, due to satellite trouble, he can't even have direct communication with anyone else. His only companion is GERTY (Kevin Spacey), sort of a tripartite version of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, one that comes with changeable emoticons.
One day, as Sam is heading out to collect the Helium 3 from a harvester, he thinks he sees someone out on the surface of the moon. Distracted, Sam crashes his buggy into the much larger harvester and passes out. He awakes in the infirmary, GERTY watching over him, with no memory of how he got there. When he finds out and how he finds out will change Sam's lives forever. And no, that's not a typo. I mean "lives".
This is an exquisite and challenging production, highlighted by a masterful and yet understated performance by Sam Rockwell. It looks great and never feels contrived. When it begins, you're not sure what kind of tale is going to be told and when Moon introduces its mystery, the film willfully refuses to answer the immediate questions that spring to mind. Not because those questions aren't anticipated and eventually answered, but because this movie wants you to think beyond technical details and focus on more profound thoughts. This is a story about human identity and human decency and whether changing the meaning of human alters either identity or decency. Moon makes no judgments itself. It demands viewers make judgments for themselves.
Like most smart films, Moon allows the audience to figure stuff out. In fact, a couple of the most touching and wrenching aspects of this story are things of which Sam Bell seems oblivious. It's poignant to understand something about a person which they don't understand about themselves, and Sam Bell manages to be a person and not a character. This is a physically and mentally demanding role that Rockwell makes completely his own.
In addition to being excellently made and both intellectually and emotionally engaging, Moon is also a subtle and chilling indictment of the capitalist drive for exploitation and the unconsidered consequences of enriching oneself at the expense of another.
Moon is a great film. You should go out of your way to see it.