No tags yet.
My second entry is prompted by BBC2's showing, late tonight, of a modern, immediate classic. I was asked for nearly two years after its release, by numerous people, if I had seen it. When responding every time that I had not, I was always urged to, as soon as I could, without fail. Next were the blogs from well-trusted critics, essentially inferring that this is a movie one must see if one is to continue to regard oneself as a film fan.
So I did, I watched it. And guess what...
It is one of my favourite films! Yes, I finally understood the excitement with which others had been recommending it. This sort of fever would not surround anything again, as far as I was concerned, until Breaking Bad. So now here I am, being that annoying guy, writing about it with the hope that more people might take seriously a film fan's recommendation to make it a viewing priority.
I am talking about the 2009 release MOON.
Sam Bell is a contract worker who, for three years, has been mining the moon for helium-3, the solution to Earth's energy crisis. He is nearing the end of his contracted time and excited about getting home; for so long his only company has been that of video messages from his family, his photographs, and the on-board computer. Upon visiting one of the mining stations, Sam has an accident and finds himself waking at base, under the care of said computer, named Gerty.
What then unfolds is something not very easily described without spoiling what makes the film so good, but it is fair to say that due to a lot of seemingly familiar tropes, you may believe you know where the film is going. You almost definitely don't. It is refreshing to see this sort of film take more than one turn along the way and become something you really are not expecting.
Sam Rockwell has since become one of many people's favourite actors, a man who seems able to manifest physical transformation from one role to the next, without the aid of effects. Put Rockwell from Frost/Nixon, Iron Man 2, and this film alongside each other, and you could almost believe they are different people! In Moon he really does, perhaps more so than anywhere else, illustrate just how complex a performance he can give, and despite the other things about the film that I love, it is ultimately Rockwell on whom its success hinges. This is the performance at which, in time to come, people will likely look and wonder how it was that he didn't receive an Oscar nomination. Even Gerty was only voiced by Kevin Spacey after the man himself saw a rough cut, and was so impressed by the actor that he wanted to be part of the project.
The great reception Moon received was not only testament to the quality of Rockwell, of course, but also to that of first time film maker Duncan Jones (yes, "Zowie Bowie"), who would go on to make Source Code, and is now pretty much finished with the daring project Warcraft.
Moon is a fascinating, independently produced sci-fi which, unlike most entries in the genre, features no hi-tech, big-budget effects, monsters, or fancy trickery. It is just a good idea, great film making, one of Clint Mansell's most impressive scores, and it boasts a superb, unexpectedly moving performance as its beating heart.
Catch Moon and it may well become one of your favourite movies, too.
5/5