“There is no dark side of the moon, really,” a man says at the end of the classic Pink Floyd album. “Matter of fact, it’s all dark.”
Apparently, no one told Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), the astronaut whose job it is, in Duncan Jones’ “Moon,” to mine the dark side for Helium-3 and send it to back to Earth for use as energy.
As far as Sam’s concerned, someone has a lot of explaining to do, and it goes a bit deeper than the semantics of lunar geography. To start with, there are the hallucinations, which aren’t too surprising, considering he’s been on the moon for three years. He’s alone, except for the station’s dutiful robot, GERTY, voiced by Kevin Spacey.
Things get interesting when, after crashing his vehicle on a mining expedition, Sam wakes up in the infirmary and finds a younger and more stoic version of himself wailing on the station’s punching bag. And what’s weirder: He doesn’t seem to be a figment of Sam’s imagination.
I can’t say much more without compromising the captivating spirit of exploration to which “Moon” subscribes, and this is simply a journey too fascinating to risk ruining. Jones, known for his commercial work and for his father David Bowie, has created a mesmerizing landscape both visually and thematically with his first feature film. The opening sweep through the station’s interior, the shots of the mining vehicle spitting out debris into the moon’s atmosphere ““ it’s a beautiful movie, made hauntingly more so by Clint Mansell’s score.
And Rockwell, fresh off his role in “Frost/Nixon,” does brilliant work in the space Jones has created for him. He is essentially playing one character twice, but his two versions of Sam Bell are distinctly different manifestations of the same personal template. This gets to the heart of “Moon,” the nature of identity and its formation, an idea that can only be so fully investigated thanks to Rockwell’s nuanced acting.
Most of the dialogue he handles on both ends, the main exception being his chats with GERTY. Kevin Spacey skillfully navigates the part of the compassionate robot, channeling HAL 9000 without the sinister totalitarianism, and manages to steal scenes using only his voice.
Speaking of HAL, though, it must be mentioned that “Moon” at times feels strangely familiar. Some of GERTY’s lines are very similar to those in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear “Blade Runner” mentioned as an influence as well. There are even moments, as Sam traverses the desolate landscape of the moon in search of Helium-3, when it seems like you’re watching “WALL-E” for adults.
But in the grand scheme of things, these similarities are tangential. The core concerns of “Moon” are not only unique and intensely thought-provoking, they are also eerily plausible in a way that makes for an unusually relevant piece of science fiction. Surprising enough to keep things exciting the first time through and challenging enough to demand a second viewing, this is a film as intellectually compelling as it is strikingly pretty. Take a trip to the dark side of the moon, if there is such a thing, and be amazed.
E-mail Goodman at agoodman@media.ucla.edu.