Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is tired. He shambles around his place of work fueled almost entirely by the sheer pull of his responsibilities. Sam is good at his job, but it would seem the job is not so good to Sam. His eyes droop. His beard and hair are shaggy from lack of grooming. His conversations with a co-worker seem rote. A call from his wife reveals a glimmer of hope, however, as we learn that in only a few weeks, after three long years, Sam will finally be able to go home.
The plot of Moon
Home to Earth, that is. As the TV commercial that opens the film informs us, a mining facility was created on the dark side of the Moon to harvest stores of a newly discovered energy resource to be shipped back down to our increasingly depleted planet. Sam is the sole employee stationed there, save for his "co-worker" - a robot suspended from tracks on the ceiling, named GERTY.
Sam's three-year contract is almost over, and he is more than ready to see his wife and daughter, whom he's only been able to communicate with via recorded video messages on a delay - no actual live conversations. But an accident with one of the huge, automated, tank-like harvesters delays Sam's departure, and puts a series of events into motion that upends his plans in a big way.
Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey star in Moon
Sam Rockwell has a lot to do here, as he alone is the majority of the film, but he gives a fantastically grounded performance that really makes you feel for the guy and his plight. There's a certain amount of unraveling he has to do that is subtly and achingly believable. To say more about the actor's task would be a bit of a spoiler, but those who've seen the trailer might have an idea what he's up against.
Kevin Spacey also deserves props as the voice of the robot GERTY, who speaks with human inflection, but little emotion. It's harder to pull off than that might sound, but Spacey does well by it. It's kind of a slick casting move, as Spacey's voice has the ability to somehow seem coolly menacing yet genuinely warm at the same time. Most of the bits of humor in the film come from the combination of Spacey's voice with GERTY's "face" - as a warning, perhaps, of the frighteningly inevitable evolution of our "tweeting" and texting culture, GERTY's video display shows merely a series of static versions of the yellow smiley-face. He is the life manifestation of the emoticon.
Duncan Jones directs and co-writes Moon
In his feature directorial debut, Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie, by the way) brings a stark, austere, Kubrick-esque feel to the work that mirrors Sam Bell's feelings of despair perfectly. Even the score by Clint Mansell is sparse, being mostly lonely piano pieces. Shots of white vehicles rolling across vast, cratered, otherwise empty plains are requisite here, as is the design of the station itself.
The design of Moon
As in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is mostly white, and paneled, with rounded corners, like a kind of habitable MacBook. But unlike 2001, there are dirt smudges all over the place. Grime has collected in the cracks. Sam has snapshots and yellow post-its up all over the walls and equipment. He's been keeping himself busy with the shockingly low-tech pastime of whittling a model of his home town out of wood, as well as tending to some nice plants, haphazardly potted together in a small room. His TV entertainment choices run decidedly old-school, with black-and-white reruns of Bewitched and Dick Van Dyke (though this could be simply a way of cost-cutting for the production, as the rights to feature those shows are most likely way cheap). The place just feels very lived in, and as tired and crusty as Sam, which is essential in eliciting even more sympathy from the viewer.
Moon is a must-see
Ultimately, Moon is about morality, mortality, and mystery in a sci-fi setting. For a thriller it has a languid pace, but it absolutely keeps the audience's attention, through the tight plotting and nuanced performance of Sam Rockwell. It might not be necessary to see on a big screen, but if the opportunity arises, go. It's the perfect antidote to overblown summer-movie-itis, while still satisfying a geeky fix.
