Moon
Review
Nick Bate
School of Physics
Moon is all about Sam Bell who works solo on the dark side of the moon.
Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures
The film Moon must be about the moon, right? It's awfully convenient, then,
that we've got an expert on the moon right here at Melbourne University to review it, right? Unfortunately, she's busy writing her PhD thesis, so I'm
the next-closest thing to an expert (in that my desk is a handful of metres away from hers). Having seen the movie (twice now - I'm committed to this
whole reviewing game), I can't help but feel that maybe a psychologist should have reviewed it. Or perhaps an ethicist. But you're stuck with an
astrophysicist, so let's see how this goes!
Moon is all about Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) who works solo on the dark side of the moon, keeping an eye on four big mobile harvesters.
The harvesters strip the moon's surface of helium-3, used on Earth as an environmentally friendly source of energy. An accident with a communications
relay means that poor Sam has no direct contact with the Earth. His only company is an intelligent computer, GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), who
communicates his moods via surprisingly sinister little smiley faces. Creepy, I assure you.
Sam's three years of isolation is almost up. Soon he can return to his wife and newborn baby back on Earth. However three years is a long time
to be alone and Sam has started hallucinating. When one of these hallucinations causes him to drive his moon-buggy under one of the harvesters, Sam
wakes up in the infirmary, which is when things start to get a bit strange. That's about where I'm going to have to leave the plot synopsis. It's
probably not strictly true to say this film has a twist, but there's a definite danger of me giving the game away too early. And here's why this film
probably would've been better reviewed by a psychologist or an ethicist: the whole thing is about Sam, locked up in the lunar base with only himself
for company.
It's for that reason that this film hangs pretty much entirely on Rockwell's performance. For the overwhelming majority of the film's 97 minute running
time, Rockwell is the only person on screen. And he's good. There's angry Sam, sad Sam, dangerously depressed Sam, crazy Sam, resigned Sam, lonely Sam and
plenty more, with nobody at all to feed off or respond to. Except himself. I've been a fan of Rockwell's ever since Galaxy Quest (seriously, watch it - it's
hilarious), and he's the perfect choice for this sort of movie. He does (handsome) everyman so incredibly well. And I defy you not to giggle when he does an
angry little crazy dance to the tune of "Walkin' on Sunshine" (surely the song that's provoked the largest number of silly-dances in the history of Hollywood).
The ideas in this film are not particularly new. It even looks a little like it was made twenty or thirty years ago (seriously - those moon buggies are
little models! Not computer generated! Oh the joy!). The moon is a grubby place, the base feels mechanical rather than electronic, the moon buggies are these
giant, six-wheeled industrial devices. You can tell that director Duncan Jones (yes, he's David Bowie's son) and screenwriter Nathan Parker consider the 1940s
and 50s the golden age of science fiction. This film has absolutely no explosions, no aliens, and no lasers. And you know what? I'm okay with that. This is
science fiction about people, not science fiction about technology, or even science fiction about the moon.
I'd say a word or two about the science in the movie, but it kind of seems beside the point. Just in case you're hanging out for it, though:
yes, helium-3 is real; it's an isotope of helium, with one less neutron than usual. Yes,
there's helium-3 on the moon's surface. Yes, you'd use it in a fusion reactor. No, I'm in no way qualified to say whether what they do to Sam is even remotely
plausible. Yes, intelligent computers are creepy by definition (let's call that the Hal Principle).
But yeah, it's not really about any of that. It's an impressive little film about a man locked up alone on a moon base for three years, finally discovering
the lengths to which his employer will go in the name of clean energy and a hefty profit. I reckon you should go and see it.
Nick Bate is currently writing his PhD in astrophysics.
