CINEMA: Moon

Whereas the latest Harry Potter is big budget and bloated, Moon is small and perfectly formed.

This intense sci-fi drama doesn’t need mega-buck special effects to be successful; it depends much more on a wonderful double starring performance from Sam Rockwell and some tightly controlled direction from Duncan Jones, son of one Mr David Bowie.

On the far side of the moon astronaut Sam Bell (Rockwell) lives alone on a base with only the all-knowing computer Gerty (perfectly voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company. Sam is overseeing the mining of Helium-3, a much-sought after commodity back on Earth, and between shifts he is building a miniature town to while away the time before his three-year contract is up. But Sam is beginning to feel below par, and his mind is starting to play tricks on him – is it just cabin fever or is something really wrong? It’s when he wakes up in the infirmary after an accident to find himself in the company of a younger Sam that things get really weird. However, as Sam is about to find out, his life is far stranger than fiction, or should that read “lives”…. ?

With a budget of just $5 million and a shoot of only 33 days, Duncan Jones has kept the special effects necessarily lo-fi, but this is actually to the overall film’s benefit because it means you concentrate on the human, emotional side of the story and Sam Rockwell is very affecting. His Sam is a man you really connect with and sympathise with, stuck all by himself on a chunk of barren rock with only a computer for company. Sam’s emotional development, his self-questioning and eventual enlightenment, suck you in. There’s something oddly unsettling about Sam’s mundane existence and you end up feeling as disturbed as he is by the arrival of an interloper into his ordered life.

Then there’s the touching bond between Sam and Gerty – a human and a machine that actually care for each other. This little film tackles really profound themes such as what does it mean to be human; how “real” are human desires and longings, and why do we all feel this need to belong?

This is a film that will still resonate in your mind many days after you’ve seen it and let’s hope Duncan Jones continues to make similarly thought-provoking movies and doesn’t get sucked into the Hollywood machine.