Film review: Moon

Published on Thursday 16 July 2009 19:06

MOON (15) **** DIRECTED BY: DUNCAN JONES STARRING: SAM ROCKWELL, KEVIN SPACEY, DOMINIQUE MCELLIGOTT

EVER since Star Wars and Alien introduced science fiction cinema to the concept of outer space as a used future full of floating junkyards and rickety space ships with rusted metal corridors, the sterile environs of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey have been thoroughly out of vogue. From Blade Runner's acid rain-scorched cityscapes and the twisted metal apocalypse of the Terminator films to Wall-E's galactic garbage pile and the rusty, crusty environs of the Matrix movies, grime and slime have been the genre's guiding principle, aesthetically speaking, so much so that even the new Star Trek film has ditched the franchise's pristine feel and gone for a more roughed-up, grungier and lived-in feel.

Yet with the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings upon us, it is from Kubrick's 41-year-old masterpiece that promo director Duncan Jones has taken inspiration for his wonderfully spare and provocative debut film, Moon. Shot in only 33 days on soundstages at Shepperton Studios for the ludicrously modest sum of 3 million (give or take a few thousand), Jones has worked wonders with his limited resources to create a sleek, oppressively clinical environment dominated by hospital whites, minimalist designs and clean lines. The sterility has a function, too (it's not just a way to hide the fact there's no money for expensive props, set-dressing or wham-bam effects). Set in a near future in which the current energy crisis has been solved by harvesting a clean fuel source from the surface of the Moon, Jones uses the retro look to symbolise the way dark secrets can be buried beneath glossy, eco-friendly corporate spin, especially when large profits are involved.

That theme gradually emerges in the story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a lone astronaut nearing the end of a three-year contract tending the Earth's lunar mining outpost. Sam has a wife (Dominique McElligott) and young daughter back on Earth, but thanks to an ongoing fault with his base station's communications network, he can't transmit or receive live images. Thus, he's able to check in with his family only periodically, whenever he receives one their pre-recorded messages. This also means that his only interactive communication has been with the ship's computer, GERTY, who comes on like an even creepier cousin of Hal 9000. Sardonically voiced by Kevin Spacey, it has a playful relationship with Sam, but GERTY's benign concern can't help but appear to mask a more sinister agenda. Jones certainly doesn't shy away from indulging our genre preconceptions here.

Riffing on a grand tradition of sci-fi films featuring malevolent machines in the service of faceless corporate entities, he wants to create a sense of unease, but he also wants to rattle our assumptions about what a film like this can be about. Indeed, when little inconsistencies and possible hallucinations give Sam cause to start questioning his mental state, Jones seems to be prepping us for another Solaris-style descent into madness. Unlike films such as Event Horizon and Sunshine, however, Moon takes a more subversive, interesting and provocative turn after an accident results in Sam finding another presence on the ship who looks a lot like the original mission commander.

To divulge much more about the plot risks ruining the film, but suffice it to say that the film becomes a profound and intelligent exploration of what it means to be human, with Jones neatly sidestepping genre clichs while simultaneously building up a chilling sense of existential dread. This is a film about the dark side of the Moon, where spiritual wonder gives way to the ruthless machinations of corporate greed, and the way Jones uses his antiseptic set and Clint Mansel's haunting piano score to intensify the air of claustrophobia is often stunning.

Jones (and yes, he is David Bowie's son, so insert your own Moonage Daydream/Space Oddity quip here) has a real mastery of the camera and a good feel for the kind of low-key detail that helps imbue life and vitality into what could have been a dry and intellectual cinematic exercise.

He's aided here in no small way by Sam Rockwell, who works wonders in a difficult role that requires him to interrogate in very understated ways different facets to Sam's personality. Details emerge about potential rifts in his marriage, he begins to question why he's even here and, after one crucial revelation, he's forced to reassess everything he knows about himself. Through it all, Rockwell's engaging, deeply empathetic performance ensures we never stop caring about what happens to him – or, indeed, stop rooting for him in his quest to get back home, even though, as the film progresses, the parameters of what home means to him change dramatically.

It's enjoyably trippy, brain-bending stuff, but the most satisfying thing about Moon is that it marks a return to the notion of science fiction as a genre fuelled by big ideas rather than big special effects.

That's something that cinema seems to have forgotten of late, presumably because spiralling production costs make it too risky to splurge on films that value intelligence over easily marketable action. But Moon proves that smart sci-fi can be done on a budget without compromising on style or, indeed, entertainment value.