Over the "Moon"

The one major drawback to SIFF is also the one thing that makes it stand out from the international film festival crowd, its size. With so many features, documentaries and shorts, it’s sometimes easy to become overwhelmed to the point you actually forget some of what you seen. Especially if you see it early, like during the press screening period that happens weeks before the festival starts, and unless the picture stands out as magnificent the chances you might forget it – even for an instant – is unfortunately pretty high.

That’s what happened to me in regards to director Duncan Jones excellent science fiction drama Moon. I actually saw this movie all the way back in April, and it didn’t even occur to me that it was playing during the first week of SIFF until the moment I was suddenly sitting down with the director to talk about. It was completely absent during the Thursday’s recap of my early personal favorites, the fact I didn’t mention it making me feel a bit like a total idiot.

Why? Because this movie, even in spite of some relative problems with over-familiarity and predictability, is a total grabber from start to finish. The story of corporate drone Sam Bell (Sam Rockewell) at the tail end of a three-year contract working alone (save for the companionship of singular robot named GERTY, wonderfully voiced by Kevin Spacey) in a mining plant on the Moon, the film is a glorious 1970’s/1980’s style throwback that makes you think almost as much as it entertains.

Not wanting to give too much away, threw a seemingly random and bizarre sequence of events Sam ends up coming face-to-face with what appears to be a three-years younger version of himself, the two men having to figure out what is going on before a retrieval team from the corporate office arrives to assess the situation. Is there a conspiracy, the company hiding a secret the two Sams were never meant to discover? Or is it all a figment of the man’s imagination, almost 1095 days of solitude taking their toll on his fracturing psyche?

The answer isn’t all the surprising, to be completely honest, but the journey is still so enthralling the fact I pretty much had the whole story clocked the moment Sam One and Sam Two met for the first time didn’t really bother me. Jones creates a magnificent fusion of 2001, Silent Running, Outland and Gattaca consistently thought-provoking and engaging. There is a smooth, almost pulsating tension running through the picture that got a little bit under my skin and kept me gingerly creeping to the edge of me seat, the filmmaker plays things just close enough to the vest I couldn’t help but want to see more.



It also helps immensely that Rockwell, easily one of the most underrated and undervalued actors of his generation (his work in films as diverse as Galaxy Quest, Matchstick Men, Confessions of Dangerous Mind, Choke, Frost/Nixon and Snow Angels shows an almost unbelievable range) this dual portrait of one man’s journey at two points in time is arguably one of his very best. What he does here is like what Jeremy Irons accomplished in Dead Ringers, and if there were any justice in the world voting members will take the time to seek this small sci-fi drama out a give the guy the Oscar nomination he totally deserves.

As the film starts going into limited release in just a couple of weeks, I’m going to leave things there for now. There is so much more to talk about and discuss, and I almost can’t wait to get into that interview I had with Duncan. That said, here’s one quote from our brief 20-minute chat I think you might enjoy, the two of us having a debate on the two different types of directors who graduate from making commercials and go into the world of feature-length motion pictures. I have to say, to me at least, I don’t just think his answer is a good one, I feel it’s downright refreshing.

“I think there are two different types of [commercial directors]. I think there are those who want to make feature films to start off with, and commercials are a root to making [them]. They use commercials to learn, to explore the medium and to get better at the craft, and I think that’s the type I am.”

“And then there are the people who make a fantastic living making commercials and kind of just feel like they should probably make a feature because they’ve done so many commercials, and I think those are the guys who maybe have a little bit of a problem doing something that doesn’t come naturally to them. [Commercials], it is about the look of things, it is about the visuals, and if you don’t want to look deeper than the surface it’s easy to fall into that trap when you start making feature films.”

“For me, it is about the characters. The visuals are important. The look is important. But the characters and their story are more important. For some guys maybe that’s not the same, it’s not the point for them. They like blowing things up and showing off their technology, and sometimes that can be entertaining but, personally, I think a really good film needs to have more than that. Hopefully it shows in [Moon] and in the other films I’ll get the opportunity to make.”

Moon opens in New York and Los Angeles on June 12 and then expands from there. It should have been in the top five in my first week top ten recap and it is a movie I hope everyone goes out and sees and I apologize for letting it slip my mind.