Moon

If I told this was a science-fiction film that for 99% of its running time only featured one actor on the screen, had no explosions, and featured a restrained piano driven score by the guy who did the requiem for a dream sound track - does that sound like something you would be interested in? Probably not, and I'll admit that most of my enjoyment from Moon came from everything it was not. The plot is set in the future (probably didn't need to be said) when most of the earth's energy is harvested from the moon (don't worry about the details they're not important). The harvesting station is manned by a single employee (Sam Rockwell) for three year intervals. Sam doesn't have live contact with the earth, and his only companion is a monotone voiced sentient computer named GERTIE (Kevin Spacey). One day he does on a mission and gets into a horrible accident. When he wakes up back in the station later he has no idea how he got back, and when he goes back out to the crash site he finds another person who look suspiciously like himself (ooooh, how is that for giving a thinly veiled spoiler). The rest of the film then follows him as he tries to figure out what happened before a 'rescue' team arrives in fourteen hours.

Getting back to my earlier point, what really the enjoyment of the film is how it takes the usual sci-fi conventions (cloning, a faceless corporation, and a sentient computer) and plays with them in unexpected ways. For example, GERTIE is set up in as a HAL like presence throughout the film, and I honestly expected the payoff to similiar to countless other films with malevolent computers, but the way it plays out in Moon is much more subtle and satisfying. The big mystery that the plot eventually revolves around isn't even that important, and the film is more concerned with engaging in a low key character study as opposed to big reveals and plot twists. I also enjoyed the way the film didn't feel the need to explain every little plot point or character motivation, instead being content with leaving some thing ambiguous and letting the audience form their own opinions.

Anyway this isn't a big or important film, but if you feel like watching something that that deals with classic sci-fi conventions in a low-key intelligent manner you'll get some enjoyment from Moon. Or you could go watch Robots punch eachother in the other big release this weekend. Which I guess is something.