Moon hit its second wave of theaters this weekend and I was pretty ecstatic when I found out that one of those theaters was basically in my backyard (at Santana Row in San Jose). You see, I’ve been following Moon pretty closely ever since I first read about the independent sci-fi flick. Something about the director’s premise just struck all of the right chords with me – hard science fiction set in a realistic future free from badly-animated CG aliens.

The basic plot involves Sam Bell, an employee assigned by Lunar Industries to a three year term mining Helium-3 on Earth’s moon. It isn’t all that hard of a job, but it is a lonely one. With a robot as his only companion, you couldn’t really blame Sam for going a little crazy. With only two weeks left in his term, Sam begins to see other people. I don’t want to give away anything else, but the twist is what propels this movie to greatness.

Of course, like many great independent movies (and great sci-fi like Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land), the details of Moon’s plot aren’t quite as important as the issues explored by it. Moon takes a haunting look at isolation, loneliness, and the effects of both on the human psyche. Three years of what is effectively solitary confinement changes a person. When we see a version of Sam from when he first arrived on the moon, he’s a temperamental man. He’s impatient, antsy, and quick to threaten violence. He’s a man who has left behind a wife and child without resolving lingering problems. Interestingly, Sam at the end of his term is a far more mellow man. He has hobbies, he has achieved some small form of zen. He’s anxious in a different way, he just wants to close his eyes and make those last weeks disappear. When you see those two versions of Sam it is impossible to not picture yourself in the same situation. I’ve been thinking about this since leaving the theater yesterday, something that not many movies have done to me.

This feeling of isolation is echoed in the film’s beautiful visuals and the soundtrack, these desolate environments of the moon’s surface accentuated by the intense pounding of a piano. Duncan Jones’ reliance on actual sets and models instead of computers hearkens back to an older era of science fiction. In some ways, I think it reflects a better era. Moon takes place in a realistic future. Helium-3 mining and moon colonization are major topics right now, and both China and the US are competing to be the first to tap into this energy source. Sam doesn’t pilot around a futuristic spacecraft, he drives a wheeled moon rover. He has a robot, but it is basically a box with a smile. The base that he works in is dirty, it has been lived-in. It looks like someone with questionable hygiene has lived there for years, as opposed to the cosmopolitan bar that was the Enterprise bridge in the most recent Star Trek. Frankly, it looks like the very first Star Wars. It looks like Blade Runner or 2001. It looks like a sci-fi flick before they were coated in a CG glaze. I’m not saying that modern technology has ruined the genre or anything (which would be pretty damn ironic). I just think that science fiction still rooted in our reality is a rarity and I appreciate that Jones has taken us back to this style.

When you have such a tiny cast, the pressure is cranked up on each actor to deliver a perfect part. Sam Rockwell steals the entire show in his role as Sam Bell. Rockwell did a fantastic job in last year’s Choke, but I think that Moon is the movie that really proves his ability. Sam so entrenched himself I my mind that I don’t think that any other actor could have replaced him. He brings these little tics and quirks to the character that convince you that, yes, this is a man who has been living in these cramped quarters by himself for three years.

So, just in case you couldn’t tell, I loved Moon. I had pretty high expectations for it from both the premise and having seen Sam Rockwell’s performance in Choke, but Moon far surpassed my personal hype. If you appreciate smart science fiction and like to think about your movies, I can’t recommend Moon enough. There is definitely still a place for this style of sci-fi, and I’m really hoping that Jones will get the funding to make his pseudo-sequel Mute. If Moon is playing at a theater even remotely close to you, go see it.

List of theaters
The science behind Helium-3