Moon

Editorial

Duncan Jones's mesmerising debut is an affectionate throwback to the Blade Runners, Outlands and Dark Stars of the genre, not only in terms of the way it looks, but the way it feels and thinks. From the very moment we land on Moon, the future is sci-fi's past.

The year is 2024 but, really, what with the chunky lunar bases, clinical interiors and spooky, mothering computer, its Casio watch is still firmly stuck on 2001. Endearingly lo-fi Tonka Toy lunar buggies bonk over the moon's surface like it's space circa 1999.

And yet, just when you think you've seen it all before, Moon fuses a jumble of familiar elements and magics up something original. The opening act follows all the beats of a castaway movie as we're eased into the moon boots of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), plodding solo around his lunar base, sharing tediously functional conversations with a Kevin Spacey-voiced computer, watching video messages from the wife and generally aching to get the hell out of there.

Sedate camerawork and Clint Mansell's spectral piano score compound the sense of unearthly isolation, but what makes it all so captivating are the lived-in details that ground his solitary confinement. There's also, however, a softly humming ominous ambience that's always threatening a lurch into space oddity, and when it hits, with the baffling arrival of Bell's surly... well, let's just say this movie, which moves from character study to twisty-turny existential mystery, is too smart to spoil.

Less a whodunnit, more a what-the-hell's-happening, while the ingenious script keeps you guessing, a terrific turn from Rockwell keeps you caring. It's a deeply engaging one-man show and, crucially, puts a human face on some seriously hefty themes (memory, alienation, identity). When he finally cries, "I just want to go home", hearts will break.

Simon Crook