Moon is an example of what I hope we will see from the next generation of great filmmakers. The era of the twist ending, which brought us The Sixth Sense (good), The Usual Suspects (great), Memento (good), Fight Club (good), The Others (alright), Identity (so-so), and Secret Window (bleh), has reached it’s point of cliché. Now, if a crazy movie ends with the protagonist being split personality, dreaming, actually the bad guy, hallucinating, or a ghost, I can usually see it coming and feel a bit cheated. It’s a cop out. It’s almost a twist not to have a twist these days, and that’s how I felt about Moon.
Moon is about a man named Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) who has been working for three years mining some sort of clean energy resource on the moon. He is two week away from getting to go home, but after three years he’s unbearably lonely and maybe a little crazy. His troubles only get worse after he is involved in a mining accident and upon returning to the base, finds himself. Not in the backpacking across Europe way, but in the coming home to find a flesh and blood exact clone of yourself doing your work kind of way. He freaks a bit, understandably, but then teams up with himself to solve the mystery of why there are two Sam Bells (answer: Because Sam Rockwell is awesome and should form a seriously underrated actors club with Paul Giamatti).
I sat through Moon waiting for a twist I hoped wouldn’t come. I thought “Maybe he’s dreaming, maybe he’s crazy and actually locked in an asylum, maybe he’s part of a government social experiment.” He wasn’t. It was great.
This is a small, self-contained movie. The settings involve the inside of a space station, and the surface of the moon. Characters include Sam Bell the astronaut, played by Sam Rockwell, a second Sam Bell, also played by Sam Rockwell, video messages from Sam Bell’s wife, and a computer named GERTY, voiced by Kevin Spacey, a truly inspired casting choice. There is elegance in the restraint involved in a low budget, high quality science fiction picture. The simplicity of the setting allows for us to focus on a subtly complex narrative.
It’s tricky, following a movie about clones where one of them isn’t evil. The second Sam Bell we meet is exactly the same as the first, with the same memories and knowledge. At first I thought we were just dealing with an unreliable narrator, like all the twist movies mentioned above, but it turns out we’re just dealing with two narrators that happen to be the exact same person. It’s slightly jarring, especially after watching old school Star Trek where Kirk being cloned or split into two people is a regular plot device, and there’s always evil Kirk and good Kirk. But ultimately I thought Moon really pulled it off conceptually, with several scenes of Sam talking to his double the same way he was talking to himself while he was still alone. There’s also a great scene where second Sam gets pissed about something and flies off the handle, and first Sam says something about how he now understands what his wife meant about his temper.
The one complaint I have about Moon is that it didn't feel as tight as it could have been. I think a couple minutes could have been shaved off here or there, scenes made slightly more direct. It’s the first film for director Duncan Jones (also responsible for the story idea) and screenwriter Nathan Parker (first time writing, but has been working in film for quite some time by the looks of his IMDB page) and I think it shows a bit in the editing. It’s like a really cool child’s Halloween costume that’s slightly too large, and all the neighbors go “Wow, great costume! Is it your first time making one?”
But it’s also clear that Jones comes from the same film canon that all future successful filmmakers will come from. Moon oozes Kubrick in the nicest ways, from the slightly awkward cross fade transitions in the first half of the movie that feel just like The Shining, to the several beautiful shots lifted directly from 2001. It gave me a feeling of comfort knowing that even if Jones' art is still a bit rough around the edges, he definitely has the tools to perfect it.
Also, the music by Clint Mansell (responsible for the music in Pi and Requiem for a Dream, among many other things) is great. And there were many lens flares, which I will never not notice in film ever again, thank you JJ Abrams.
Fun fact: Duncan Jones is David Bowie's son. His given name is Zowie Bowie, but he's changed it legally.
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