It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job, made even harder by a broken satellite that allows no live communications home. Taped messages are all Sam can send and receive.
His time on the moon is nearly over, and Sam will be reunited with his wife, Tess, and their daughter Eve, in only a few short weeks. Finally, he will leave the isolation of “Sarang”, the moon base that has been his home for so long. He will finally have someone to talk. While on the moon, he can only talk to Gerty, the base’s all-knowing AI (“I’m here to keep you safe, Sam. I want to help you.”).
This is roughly the story line of Moon, Duncan Jones’ first feature film. I watched it in the cinema a week ago and I can highly recommend it. Moon is well-written, surprising and thought-provoking. Sam Rockwell, who plays Sam, does an outstanding job. It’s lonely out there in space.
Jones puts the question forward what corporations can get away with, without locals or human rights groups to keep an eye on things. “What would they do to a lone, blue-collar caretaker on a base on the far side of the Moon?”, he asks. It’s an interesting perspective.
Moon stills screens at a couple of Dutch cinemas.
