Last Friday night, weary from pondering the mysteries of the MPAA movie-rating system (why is the wonderful “Adventureland” rated an audience-shriveling R? “Hostel” was rated R!), I found refreshment at a screening of “Moon,” a wonderful movie itself, in a very different, dark, brain-knotting way.
In fact, “Moon” is a terrific sci-fi space film, one that moves the venerable genre forward with a one-of-a-kind story and a striking visual design that in no way suggests its modest budget or its brisk production schedule (it was shot in about a month). The picture has one star: Sam Rockwell. He plays Sam Bell, a space worker nearing the end of a three-year corporate contract overseeing mining operations on the dark side of the moon. The lunar surface has been discovered to contain abundant amounts of Helium-3, an (actual) isotope that, in the movie, has revolutionized energy production back on Earth. The mining is done by machines; Sam is there to keep the operation humming.
It’s tough duty. Sam is the only human being in the cavernous base facility. He spends his time monitoring computers, exercising, and watching occasional video-recorded communications (there’s no live link with his home planet) from his wife and daughter and his oddly jolly corporate employers. His only companion is Gerty, a boxlike and highly mobile robotic attendant on hand to look after Sam’s well-being and provide conversational relief (in the unmistakable syrupy cadences of Kevin Spacey). Sam is desperately lonely, but rotation back to Earth is only a few weeks away – a company ship is already en route to collect him.
But then one day Sam wakes up to find he’s not alone anymore. Another man has appeared inside the base, a guy who looks a lot like Sam. In fact, it is Sam – Sam 2. What, he and we wonder, is going on?
A lot, it turns out, as the serpentine plot unfolds. But let us say no more. The movie’s publicity material gives away more about the story than a potential viewer might want to know. (Avoid early reviews, if possible.) First-time director Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie, a former starman himself) has given the film’s outside sequences on the craggy moonscape a dismal, desolate atmosphere that looks like it cost a lot to fabricate, which it didn’t. (It recalls the godforsaken exteriors of “Alien,” an acknowledged influence on this picture.) And the superb Sam Rockwell, who’s in every scene (many of them twice, you might say), gives a virtuoso performance as the increasingly fearful and ultimately horrified rocket man. He’s a wonder to watch.
“Moon” is an indie knockout. It’ll be screening at the Tribeca Film Festival in a few weeks, but Sony already bought it at Sundance, and will be releasing the film in June. Sci-fi fans aren’t the only people who should be pumped.
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