Film: Moon (2009)

[beccaelizabeth]

You know how when some films finish it feels like surfacing? Like when you come back it's a long way.

Moon was an hour and a half of absorbing. Even though it was basically just one actor in a grey-white box talking to himself. So, you know, kudos.

Not sure I'll ever be watching it again but quite happy to have watched it once.

Also I keep thinking about a story under the story. Their story was good, but it left such interesting gaps. Spoilers: So there's a guy on the moon on a three year contract, and his wife back home sends him messages, and he sees his daughter get born and grow to talk to him. And then at the end of three years he climbs in a box to go back home. And that whole time the comms have been damaged so he only gets recorded messages, and he's been working on this one model, even though he doesn't remember starting it, and it's eerily groundhog day but it's like he's working really hard on not noticing. Only then the contract length resets, and then he finds the older version of himself, and the whole thing unravels, but not in an action movie way. He's just got I think 14 hours to understand what is going on and make a plan to survive it this time. So it's very small in time and space, but it hints at bigger things.

So the characters decide the whole thing is Because Money. The corporation has batch cloned him so they don't have to recruit and train new and unpredictable people.

Okay, but, there's other threads: He's got a temper, his wife left him for six months, she gives him another chance but that's when he goes to the moon for three years, he jokes the daughter might be the milkman's even though he loves her to bits, and when he finally manages to call home in real time he finds his daughter is actually 15 years old now and his wife is dead and the original Sam Bell is at home with the daughter. And he never hears what happened to his wife.

Because Money is a boring story. There's a darker one in parts and pieces. What if iteration one was original Sam? And he came home and... either trigger warning type very nasty stuff happened, like his wife was right to leave him the first time, which would fit with the violent temper bursts displayed, or maybe the more mellow version of him at the end of three years was a better man, but she died of something unrelated. What does Sam Bell decide to do?

I can imagine a guy deciding to do the clone thing. It's a more interesting story that way. Because then it's a combination of penance and limbo and the kind of heaven where you live in your best memories. Three years away from his wife, but with her messages coming in, and seeing his daughter be new. And whatever she died of, that's three years he didn't have, out of what turned out to be too few years. So he could be guilty. But he could also just want to go back, hit rewind, live before it was all over. So I can imagine a guy volunteering for this, deliberately putting himself on a three year loop, and it's much more interesting than Because Money. Even though it could also involve money, if he could draw his clones pay. Then he could work to support his family, and stay home with his kid at the same time.

But then right at the end with the radio voices suggests that the clone went to testify against the corporations so it ends with Because Money and a limited happy ending, which... I think in my head I'll decide that was dreaming because pinning the end down was not quite what I'd hoped for. But I know a lot of people would want it, so, that works.


Story was interesting and had more threads underneath and I like it.

Film felt like a short story in the best ways. You'd have to be in the mood for it and know what you were getting, but it was good to watch.

Comments

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

"Moon" is one of my favorite movies, and I really like what you've said about his reasons for being a clone. Gives me a new perspective on the movie.