It’s good to see someone write a story and get to direct his own movie, as with UK writer Duncan Jones here, even if another writer did (Nathan Parker) did the screenplay. That’s the case from the minimalist, if CinemaScope 'movie play' 'Moon', which seems claustrophobic enough as a contractor, working by himself on a three year contract on an energy “mine” on the far side of the Moon (out of sight) comes to terms with who he is.
Now, there were other naïve spoofs on man on the moon in the 50s – 'Destination Moon' for example – until the Apollo missions (and Ron Howard) made it real. But this movie does pose the moral puzzle – what is the moral cost of our extraterrestrial renewable energy source?
It’s OK to talk to yourself, really – but don’t you wonder what kind of man (here, played by Sam Rockwell) could work alone for three years like that? There is the reliable robot based on 2001’s HAL (note – one of the most dreaded PC errors is the HAL dll error! – a coincidence?) but the quarters are squalid, beyond what is explained by solitary male housekeeping and MRE's – even the cell phones look like more than battlefield hardened issues. The character looks good enough at first, if scruffy; in Moon-gravity, he exercises and keeps in reasonable shape, and retains the hair on his legs. Things get interesting when he meets his double, or perhaps replacement – we don’t want to give away too much. (Hint: rent some ABC Family "Kyle XY" episodes from Netflix.) There is a family back home, available by Blackberry – and you wonder what kind of many really could stand to be away from wife and progeny for this long. In fact, wouldn’t an outpost like this be well populated by homosexuals? (a reversal of 'don't ask don't tell').
There's another interesting visual concept: Sam has made a model of his hometown back on Earth -- or what he believes is his home town, and important distinction.
The outdoor scenes do remind one of 'Magnificent Desolation' -- but there are more interesting bodies to make movies about -- not just Mars; how about Titan?
The original piano music by Clint Mansell, with its out-of-tune figure of repeated, slightly meandering notes in the treble, adds to suspense. The whole film tends to stimulate paranoia: how can anyone be sure that his life, memory-trace and all, isn't a construct from the manipulations of others? Keep looking over your shoulder, guy.
The film, running 97 minutes, is distributed by Sony Pictures Classics and produced by Liberty Films UK and Xingu.
Attribution link for NASA picture of far side of Moon.
