Moon

His time is nearly up. Sam Bell has been faithfully monitoring the Lunar energy harvesting systems on Selene for three years now, and he’s more than ready to return home to his wife and child on Earth.

It’s been a long haul, and the isolation is getting to him. The company’s direct video link has been down for months now, so the only line of communication involves a time-delayed relay via Saturn. There is always GERTY, the space station’s resident robot, who has been programmed to tend to his needs and who is quite chatty, considering. But that’s not the same. Sam can feel his mind and body buckling under the solitude and stress. All the more so when he goes out in the lunar rover and imagines he has glimpsed someone else out there in the darkness…

To say more about the plot would be to say too much. What you need to know about Moon is that it’s unlike almost any sci-fi film made over the last quarter century. It’s low-budget, British (but not so as you would notice), and first and foremost a psychological study that just happens to be set in outer space.

First time feature director Duncan Jones – who also came up with the story – has been namechecking pre-Star Wars movies like Silent Running and Dark Star, you might also throw in Solaris and even George Lucas’s THX-1138. Mostly, though, Moon reminds me of an earlier generation of TV sci-fi shows exemplified by the original Twilight Zone series and The Outer Limits – shows that would take a cool idea and explore it from four or five different angles over the course of an episode.

That’s what Jones does here, and it’s a tribute to him that he holds our interest for 97 minutes, mostly cooped up in the same space station, and largely focused on just Sam Bell.

That’s also a tribute to Sam Rockwell, who plays him. One of those widely respected actors who nabs lead roles from time to time (in Choke, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Snow Angels, for instance) but who hasn’t made the crossover into mainstream stardom, Rockwell is particularly good at playing characters who are beginning to fray around the edges. His work here is a tour de force, giving us more, contrasting aspects of this lonely spaceman than you would have thought possible.

What else should you know? Jones comes from advertising and pop videos – and his dad is a rather well known singer (understandably, Jones declines to be credited as Zowie Bowie). It may be a a genuine space oddity but the movie isn’t flash and flamboyant, it’s actually rather grey and measured. The space station is a plausibly neutral environment, comfortable enough in the sterile manner of a private hospital room. In a nice touch GERTY is voiced with minimal inflection by Kevin Spacey, but registers emotions through a smiley (or not) face on a small screen.

Consider my face smiley too, even if I think you should take some of the rave reviews the film has received with a pinch of salt. I’m not entirely convinced the story would hold up to repeat viewings, or that I want to watch it a second time. But it’s a smart début, no doubt, and it will be interesting to see where Mr Jones ventures next.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com