Moon (dir. Duncan Jones, 2009) *****
reviewed by David Sugarman
There’s a twist in Moon that takes place rather earlier than you would expect from most recent science-fiction films. I won’t spoil it for you. The point is that first time director Duncan Jones has not built a film that builds towards a plot pay-off. The twist happens early, and once it’s happened the audience is left to spend the rest of the movie in the company of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell). And so is he.
Rockwell deserves a million Oscars for this performance, though I’m led to believe that this would be highly irregular. Without going into too much depth, Rockwell is essentially the only actor on screen for 95% of Moon and he not only succeeds in convincing as the lonely Sam, but… well, you need to see it. Sam is the sole human overseer of a mining base on- you guessed it- the moon, and his only companion is GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), a computer that is in many ways the benign cousin of 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s HAL 9000, and which displays its basic emotions in the form of charmingly cutesy smilies on its screen. Sam is nearing the end of his three-year contract and is looking forward to returning to Earth; his wife, Tess; and their baby daughter, Eve.
It’s really difficult to stress how great Moon is without sounding a little too gushy. Rockwell’s performance is an absolute masterclass in subtlety as an everyman out of his depth; Clint Mansell’s score is pitched to eerie perfection; the cinematography by Gary Shaw looks fantastic; a good script by Nathan Parker, from Jones’s story; and brilliant production design by Tony Noble; all perfectly marshalled under Jones’s direction.
Clever, touching and genuinely thrilling despite its low-key tone, Moon might just be my favourite film of 2009. And hey, I managed to go the whole review without mentioning Duncan Jones’s father.
