SuperSunday: Moon

Spoilers Follow. Science Fiction in 2009 was shrouded by the release of 3D epic Avatar, a film now recognised as nothing more than a lazy (albeit very pretty) recant of old Western classic Dances with Wolves. But this review isn't about Avatar. It's about the other major Science Fiction film released in 2009, directed by the son of musical legend David Bowie, Duncan Jones. That film was Moon.
     The film stars Hollywood supporting man Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, a worker nearing the end of his three-year work period as a maintenance worker on the titular satelite. His company, the Korean Lunar Industries, employs him to take care of the automated diggers that harvest the helium 3 needed for Earth's clean fusion energy. Problems with communication satellites mean his only communication with home are videos sent by wife Tess, who was pregnant with daughter Eve when he left.
     Two weeks to go before he returns home, and Sam starts to hallucinate. On his way to fix a harvester he crashes, and when "he" awakens in the base his suspicions are aroused. Sam goes back to the rover, and brings back his body. It turns out that both Sams are clones, built from the DNA and memories of the original Sam Bell, who is now back on Earth. Now the two Sams have only a limited amount of time to try and expose the secrets of the base and hopefully escape before the "rescue team" arrive to clean them up...
      Behind all of its ilicit technobabble, Moon is really a parable about sollitude and deceit. The first Sam we see, Sam 4, has lived for three years in the desperate hope that one day he will return to his wife - who, as we later find out, has been dead for many years. In a way, the discovery of this deceit frees him for the little time he has left (clones die after three years, probably of some form of radiation poisoning), and allows him to eventually make the sacrifice that allows Sam 5 to send himself back to Earth. Who are we meant to see as the villians here? Lunar Industries, for creating the program in the first place? Or the original Sam Bell, who willingly gave his DNA and helped create the hundreds of clones stored in the base?
     The vital variable that makes the film work is the outstanding acting by Sam Rockwell and stand-in Robin Chalk. Rockwell manages to portray two sides of one man - the loose, relaxed Sam 4 versus the paranoid but determined Sam 5. His charting of a man's steady breakdown due to sheer loneliness presents a tragic look at the human condition on the whole, and the film would be nothing without it.

Sam examines the model he works on.

     As supporting characters go, the ship computer GERTY (voiced by, of all people, Kevin Spacey) certainly helps to stir the tension with his HAL-reminiscient overtones, and then turns out to be a subversion as, heartwarmingly, he helps the two Sams to escape. I think that was what Jones was going for; playing on the ever-increasing public mistrust of technology. One could say that it's quite clever; one could say that the whole film is quite clever, in the way it plays on so many science fiction tropes and preconceptions to form its own, semi-realistic warning for society.

     If you want to follow the masses, go to Avatar for your Science Fiction. Or, you could look towards a certain British director and his smaller project, Moon, which is an excellent melding of high-standard acting, direction and storytelling. The decision, ladies and gentlemen, is yours.

Thanks.