Moon

Along with You, The Living, Moon is another film from the latter part of the past decade that I recently discovered and has instantly become one of my favorites. It was actually released just last year, and had completely avoided my film radar. The movie was directed by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones...as if anybody was aware that David Bowie had a son...let alone one that was recognizable...let alone directing great movies! Moon is a return to the mature Sci Fi film that's standard was set by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Although it's no 2001, it's a great film that uses that imaginative backdrop of space to explore human conditions. There's no state of the art special effects or famous movie stars saving Earth. This is the space of imagination and mystery, an infinite land waiting to be explored by creative minds brave enough to do so.

Kevin Spacey provides the voice of GERTY, a robot assistant on a space bunker that's very reminiscent of the robot assistant from 2001. However, GERTY is full of personality and stands as a character on his own, being a homage rather than a rip off. His expressions are shown as a smiley face on a computer screen and brings life into the white walled, dull atmosphere of the moon bunker. GERTY is assisting Sam Bell, a man that has been operating the bunker for 3 years for Lunar, a company that harvests Helium-3 from the moon to provide resources for Earth. His loneliness and isolation has brought him to the brink of hallucination. He has a wife on Earth who just gave birth to his son, but because of a communication satellite failure, he's unable to speak to them.

The film soon takes a twist, and the viewers hostility toward Lunar's secrecy turns out to be justified. Sam discovers his life is not all that he thought it was and later makes a hard choice in coming to accept that. What surprised me so much about Moon was how charming it was. It's both funny and introspective. Duncan Jones is set to create a trilogy set in Moon's story line. I can't wait to see how the rest turn out considering how good Moon was!