Tribeca - Moon
Fantastic science fiction from director Duncan Jones. This is a science fiction movie that shares much more with the literary side of the genre than with the traditional sf movie fair. Reminiscent of Asimov or Heinlein, Moon uses its futuristic setting as a lens to explore the human condition—in this particular case, issues of human identity and the corporate mentality. The setup is rather simple. Sam Rockwell plays an employee of a helium mining company working as the sole caretaker of a factory on the far side of the moon (who also happens to be named Sam). His only companion is the station robot (voiced by Kevin Spacey), who is at least semi-sentient and capable of carrying on conversations and having complex motivations. The space satellite that enabled real time communication with Earth was damaged and has not been repaired yet, completely isolating him from any human contact. Limited communication is provided via taped messages bounced off a relay out near Jupiter, which allows him some minimal contact with both the corporate leaders as well as his wife and child. Then things start getting weird. Sam thinks he starts seeing things—other people maybe. There are intimations that there actually might be real time communication with Earth but only for the robot. But there are only two weeks left on his contract until he gets to return to Earth. And then one day he is out to work on a mining machine his rover crashes. When he wakes up in the infirmary he cannot remember anything about the accident or how he got back to the base. And then it gets really strange. I don’t want to say too much more, since it is worth seeing the film without spoilers.
That is the plot side of the film, but the actual message that is there is worthy of the classic science fiction authors as well. In many ways this is a protest film, making a rather strong statement against the traditional corporate view that workers are simply headcount, without individual worth. Firing one hundred people to cut costs is always justifiable since there is no other responsibility of a corporation but generating profit. The ideas of social cost or human worth have no real place in the calculation of corporate wealth. And Moon subtly highlights this, without ever really being preachy or having an explicit moral. Instead it simply presents a view of what happens when you completely diminish the value of a human life against capital gain. The film gets a five out of five. It gets a theatrical release in June (or maybe July) this summer. Totally worth going to see.