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Moon: The Little Engine That Could

Rockwell's failure to push his crusade into do-or-die overdrive deflates the movie's dramatic thrust.

Moon is a smart little movie that works because it really commits to an emotional point-of-view – writer/director Duncan Jones uses what could have been a hackneyed, “clones in space,” sci-fi premise to explore astronaut hero Sam Bell’s poignant disconnection from the life he longs to reclaim back on Earth. We first meet Bell (Sam Rockwell) at the tail-end of a three-year job maintaining energy-harvesting equipment on the moon; this formerly stubborn, prideful man has been driven nearly delirious by his solitary post and he now looks to the impending reunion with his beloved wife and daughter as a means of barely soldiering through each torturous day. Bell’s crippling isolation takes a tragic turn, however, when he unwittingly learns that he is in fact one of an unending series of clones genetically designed for the sole purpose of this job – his cherished memories actually belong to someone else, his assignment’s supposed completion date actually marks his scheduled expiration, his anticipated departure back to home is little more than a pipe dream. It's a beautifully conceived idea that revolves entirely around our hero's deepening loneliness - in this clearly delineated emotional context, everything from the expansive moon landscape to the imposing, worn down, clinical space equipment become surreal reminders of Sam's hauntingly poignant identity crisis. And when the delirious, "elder," three-year old Sam conspires with his fresher, newly-minted replacement to escape his scheduled destruction and instead pursue an unlikely life on Earth, it's much less of a perftunctory excuse for adventure as it is a tender testament to our heroes' deep, mutual need for some kind of genuine existential meaning.

What a shame, then, that Jones ultimately lets down this promising set-up by failing to go the distance with Sam’s defiant crusade - for all his dramatic bluster, Sam never really does much of anything to reclaim his life back on earth. The movie never presses Sam into really fighting tooth-and-nail for his voyage back "home," it never forces Sam to really throw everything on the line for his cause, it never pushes Sam into that crucial do-or-die zone where he threatens to do more harm than good in order to stay alive. Nowhere is this half-hearted storytelling more evident than in the “climatic” scene where the bedraggled, elder Sam unceremoniously acquiesces to his predetermined demise and instead allows his fresher replacement to utilize their hasty escape plan – it’s a limp, facile moment where our hero casually gives up a mission that he never fully got behind in the first place. It's one thing to sidestep conventional action fireworks - it's a whole other thing to abstain from throwing a single piece of conflict in your hero's way (especially when he's going to so easily give up the cause later down the line). We can only ever know how much Sam's life means to him if we see him pursue it into a place of true adversity - it can be understated adversity, it can be offscreen adversity, it can be minimalist adversity but it has to be existent; we can only feel invested in Sam's concession of defeat if it comes after being backed into an absolute corner where it's clear that no other option makes sense. But because Sam lacks the dramatic gumption to fight like hell for his established value system, Moon never deepens much beyond its initial, general pathos into something more specifically meaningful or relevant. Just when the movie seems poised to shift into high gear, it runs out of gas. It's a whole lot of (admittedly compelling) dramatic exposition that immediately gives way to a deflating, anticlimactic conclusion. Ultimately, then, Moon plays like a well oiled but dramatically hollow homage to a bygone era of more accomplished science fiction movies. It’s a neat exercise but one of very little consequence.

Director: Duncan Jones
Writer: Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker;
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Kaya Scodelario

July 13, 2009