Spoiler Free Intro

Moon tells the story of Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) who is working, all alone, on the dark side of the moon (of course). His job is to mine and process the element Helium-3 which now provides the majority of the Earth’s power. Oh, and just to throw in some extra complication, all real-time communications with the Earth, his wife Tess and everything he remembers have been severed due to a failed relay satellite. Oh dear. Sam is counting down the days until the end of his contract when he’s involved in a terrible accident. When he awakes from his accident he realises that he’s not alone - somebody has rescued him. But who?

Mildly-relevant tangent: Space as Desert

While watching Moon I kept thinking of an interview with the author JG Ballard that I heard a few months ago:

War is a devastating experience, it changes you in ways that are impossible to understand. All the assumptions that we all make about daily life, security, the reality of the streets we walk down, friendships, colleagues are just swept aside - war is quite a surrealist experience; [...] reality is just a stage set that can be swept aside, as I saw as a boy in Shanghai

I know very little about Ballard’s books so can’t claim to have any great insight - but it did occur to me that really good science fiction movies, and to some extent good westerns, play on the idea that Ballard was talking about. Most of the reality we interact with is temporary; it’s possible to strip away all the people (or at least all the sane people), the trees, animals, oxygen, family and comfort. Science fiction tells the story with what’s left.

Moon

Moon plays with all the familiar conventions of the alone-in-space genre really well. We discover that Sam has been rescued by an eerie clone of himself. The clone has moved in to his quarters, is wearing his slippers, and isn’t really keen to go anywhere. Sam finds himself alone on the base with himself for company; alone but not alone.

I just loved this idea; Sam basically gets what he’s craved for years, human contact, but in the weirdest form possible. Soon, the two Sam Bells start to notice all the little annoyances that are usually only apparent to others - Sam has basically nowhere to hide from his own flaws. Gradually, they learn to live with one another, but Sam’s identity quickly starts to unravel - nothing is as it seems. In a short time both Sams are forced to confront a very real question; which Sam Bell is going home?

To Sum Up

Nearly time to bed, so will can the rambling. Sam Rockwell copes really well with what must have been a tough role (roles) to play. Kevin Spacey lends his voice to the on-board computer Gerty, and does a decent job. The music by Clint Mansell adds a huge amount of atmosphere, especially when Sam is out on the lunar surface in his rover. The special effects looked and felt just real enough - I really liked the use of good old fashioned scale models, mixed in with CGI.

Moon is well worth a look. It wears its references very openly, but stands up as a solid film. Fair play to you David Bowie’s young-fella.