Sam Rockwell Shines in the Moon

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 2010)

¨I hope life on Earth is everything you remember it to be. ¨ Moon is a very good sci-fi film, which is even more impressive considering it is Duncan Jones's directorial debut (and he actually won a BAFTA award for this picture). Jones, who was known up to this moment primarily for being David Bowie's son, does a great job at creating such an artistic movie with such a low budget. He came up with the story and Nathan Parker wrote the screenplay for it. Moon is probably among the best films of 2009 and my favorite sci-fi movie of that year along with District 9. The film works because it has an interesting premise, it's a well thought out movie, and it has a very good performance from Sam Rockwell. It also is impossible not to compare it with Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey, since Moon seems to pay homage to that film and I think that it does the movie justice. It is very hard to come across smart movies like this one, especially in the sci-fi genre, and it really felt very nice to not know what was going to happen nor being able to predict the film. In a period of time where so many remakes are being made and ideas are constantly being recycled it was good to come across a fresh movie like this one. Even though the budget to make this film was pretty low, the visual effects are great and that is a must for a sci-fi picture.
Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) works for Lunar Industries and he has a 3 year contract to work solo at the station in the moon. The new energy source in Earth is Helium 3 which is harvested in the moon and Sam is in charge of sending it back to earth. The only company he has at the station is a robot called GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), who is designed to fulfill his every day needs and since direct communication with Earth has been interrupted he has to communicate with his wife through video recordings. Sam also has a young daughter who was born shortly before he went to the moon and he can't wait to go back to meet her since he only has a couple of weeks left in his three year contract. The problem is that the three years of isolation have begun to leave its mark on him and he begins to suffer from hallucinations and finds himself often talking to himself and his plants. One day Sam encounters some problems outside of the station as he was trying to fix a mechanical harvester and suffers a head injury and is left unconscious. He awakes inside the station with GERTY attending him but has no recollection of how he got back to the base. After Sam recovers from the injury he decides to visit the site of the accident and makes an astonishing discovery that makes him doubt about his sanity. He sees himself in the same place where he suffered the injury and decides to bring him back to the base. He begins to question his mind and his true identity and whether or not he has been cloned.
The movie really takes some interesting twists and turns making it very hard to predict. This is what makes Moon such a good sci-fi film, but it wouldn't have worked if Sam Rockwell didn't give such a great performance as he put on a one man show. He had to play two different kind of characters and it was very entertaining to see him deliver such a great performance. Kevin Spacey also was great as the voice of GERTY and it was impossible not to think about HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey. I really enjoyed this movie which raises a lot of questions towards the advances of science and will leave you thinking about some important issues which I don't want to give away. It also focuses on the importance humans have of communicating with each other and having intimacy with other people in a similar way that Tom Hank's Castaway did. This is a highly recommendable film which you should see if you're not easily put off by the slow pacing of the film.
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