August 3, 2009
Why isn’t this movie on at the mainstream cinemas? If you like intelligent, well-crafted, beautifully-acted human drama, whether sci-fi or not, do yourself a favour and catch this movie before it disappears. It is alas not possible to say very much about the plot without giving away crucial developments and I don’t want to spoil the whodunit, or rather, what just happened, element of surprise.
The initial set-up is thus:
Sam Bell is only a couple of weeks away from the end of a three-year contract as the only human worker in a mining operation on the dark side of the moon. His only company is Gerty, a robot suspended like an old-fashioned tram from a roof track, which cannot leave the base. Sam’s job is to drive out to the four roving strip-mining converters and retrieve full cylinders of super-fuel Helium 3 (this is true – it’s highly desirable as a second-generation fuel for nuclear fusion, but occurs in v low quantities on Earth) and shoot them back to the planet.
His daily routine is one of mind-numbing monotony; he lives for the messages he gets from his wife and infant daughter (these have to be bounced back to the dark side via Jupiter, as the regular com-link that would enable live conversation with Earth is allegedly broken) and he is totally focussed on getting through these last three weeks so he can go home to his family. Then (of course) things start to go dreadfully wrong, and the successive revelations of what is really going on are truly horrible.
This is not a film packed with action scenes or special effects, and some reviewers, presumably expecting these in a sci-fi movie, have found it to be downbeat or slow. But the tension generated during the sequences when you’re trying to figure out what’s happening, and your sympathy for Sam as his world crumbles around him make it one of the most compelling dramas in movies this year.
It’s a demanding role for Sam Rockwell, as he is in virtually every scene, but he is nothing short of brilliant and ought to be nominated for an Oscar if there’s any justice in the world. Gerty’s rich, warm, soothing, mellifluous tones are superbly voiced by Kevin Spacey. Of course much of the pleasure to be derived from genre movies like this depends on their status as a collective fiction, especially for those of us who’ve been around long enough to see all the others in the collection – crucial others here are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dark Star, Solaris and Blade Runner. We can’t hear those soothing, ever-so-slightly ironic tones without thinking of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the treacherous HAL. What is Gerty hiding from Sam? What lengths will it go to, to keep that secret hidden? How real is its often-repeated commitment to keep him safe and happy? The sets of the mining base do not in the least resemble the gleaming white designer interiors of Discovery One, however, but rather the seedy, grubby, down-at-heel interiors of the Millenium Falcon or Serenity. This, you feel, is what a chap who had been alone for three years with no-one to nag him would be living in. But when you learn the true reason for the third rate accommodations, you will be filled with rage and horror.
Definitely a must-see and 9/10.
The initial set-up is thus:
Sam Bell is only a couple of weeks away from the end of a three-year contract as the only human worker in a mining operation on the dark side of the moon. His only company is Gerty, a robot suspended like an old-fashioned tram from a roof track, which cannot leave the base. Sam’s job is to drive out to the four roving strip-mining converters and retrieve full cylinders of super-fuel Helium 3 (this is true – it’s highly desirable as a second-generation fuel for nuclear fusion, but occurs in v low quantities on Earth) and shoot them back to the planet.
His daily routine is one of mind-numbing monotony; he lives for the messages he gets from his wife and infant daughter (these have to be bounced back to the dark side via Jupiter, as the regular com-link that would enable live conversation with Earth is allegedly broken) and he is totally focussed on getting through these last three weeks so he can go home to his family. Then (of course) things start to go dreadfully wrong, and the successive revelations of what is really going on are truly horrible.
This is not a film packed with action scenes or special effects, and some reviewers, presumably expecting these in a sci-fi movie, have found it to be downbeat or slow. But the tension generated during the sequences when you’re trying to figure out what’s happening, and your sympathy for Sam as his world crumbles around him make it one of the most compelling dramas in movies this year.
It’s a demanding role for Sam Rockwell, as he is in virtually every scene, but he is nothing short of brilliant and ought to be nominated for an Oscar if there’s any justice in the world. Gerty’s rich, warm, soothing, mellifluous tones are superbly voiced by Kevin Spacey. Of course much of the pleasure to be derived from genre movies like this depends on their status as a collective fiction, especially for those of us who’ve been around long enough to see all the others in the collection – crucial others here are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dark Star, Solaris and Blade Runner. We can’t hear those soothing, ever-so-slightly ironic tones without thinking of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the treacherous HAL. What is Gerty hiding from Sam? What lengths will it go to, to keep that secret hidden? How real is its often-repeated commitment to keep him safe and happy? The sets of the mining base do not in the least resemble the gleaming white designer interiors of Discovery One, however, but rather the seedy, grubby, down-at-heel interiors of the Millenium Falcon or Serenity. This, you feel, is what a chap who had been alone for three years with no-one to nag him would be living in. But when you learn the true reason for the third rate accommodations, you will be filled with rage and horror.
Definitely a must-see and 9/10.