Moon vs The Shining

Obviously, you go to space and your options are few. You can get ambushed by aliens and die. You can be deceived by an android and die. Maybe your ship is alive and it wants to kill you. Maybe the aliens are friendly, but when they impersonate your father, it doesn’t show up on tape. Maybe you’re being double-crossed by a corporation that doesn’t want to kill the alien, but rather, study it, and it’s going to risk your life to do so. It’s pretty much a lose/lose situation, going to space.

So it should come as no surprise that in Moon, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is not having a good time. He’s been there for three years, and even though he’s only got two weeks left, time is not moving quickly. His health is deteriorating. He’s gaunt from lack of sleep (and probably malnutrition). He’s irritable, paranoid, and losing touch with time and reality. His only companionship is video messages sent from home, and the soothing tones of Gerty, a robotic assistant that appears to exist in all rooms of the space station Sam lives in. Gerty is voiced by Kevin Spacey, so you’ll probably guess that his voice is alternately soothing and creepy. Gerty’s only human characteristic is a tiny, changing yellow face. Sometimes it smiles, sometime’s it’s sad, sometimes confused. Because I’ve seen a few movies (namely 2001 and Alien, both of which contribute stylistic influences to Moon), I anticipated Gerty also having a scary red face and a stern list of rules that needed carrying out for a mysterious company. That part doesn’t happen…mostly. For the bulk of the movie, we don’t know if Sam is going crazy, or if he’s got some sort of poisoning, or if he’s even in space at all. Maybe he’s a crazy person on Earth. The pleasure of watching Moon comes not only from how effective the script is at keeping us caring about Sam’s mental and physical state, but also in the performance of Sam Rockwell, which is uncommonly interesting. Moon is well written, but nearly everything compelling about Sam comes from Rockwell’s attention to detail. Rockwell’s performance is as specific as the set or costumes. Things he does with his eyes, or hands, during key moments of the movie, and at different…stages of his character show us that we aren’t the only ones confused. Sam doesn’t know if he’s crazy, or sick, or on the moon, or back home or maybe he’s not even…stop me. Maybe you should just go see it.

There are a couple major twists in Moon, one that I wouldn’t dare reveal in a review, although they’re right there in the trailer, if you look closely enough. Moon was directed by Duncan Jones, who does a capable job with one of my favorite subgenres of film: Lower Budget Creepy Sci-Fi. Think Primer, in space. Moon is great looking. The space station is immaculate, Kubrickian white, and never seems quite big enough for a three-year stay. Likewise, the scenes outside the station are claustrophobic and ominous. Sam doesn’t seem safe inside, doesn’t seem safe outside. Where else is there for him to go?

You could follow up Moon with one of the movies that preceded it, like 2001, Alien, or Silent Running, but doing that might make it feel less inspired. Instead, let’s draw a diagonal line backwards to The Shining. Not only is it Kubrickian, it’s actually Kubrick. It’s also got the brightly lit, overly-sanitary whiteness of Moon, and it’s got the not-safe-inside/not-safe-outside thing going for it as well. Most importantly, it’s got a main character not-so-slowly losing his shit. Unfortunately for the supporting characters of The Shining, he’s got more than himself and a robot on which to take out his frustrations. 

The Shining is legendary, so I won’t insult you with too many plot details, but you should know: until last week, I’d never seen it. So I won’t bore you with how great I think Jack Nicholson, Scatman Crothers and Shelley Duvall are in The Shining (although the latter’s performance is vastly underrated). The long tracking shots? Yeah, you already know about those. The baseball-bat fight on the stairs? Been there, done that. The terrifying, frozen Jack in the maze? Nothing new to you. 

Anyway, in case someone else is out there, like me, with no prior Shining experience: Jack Torrence is a writer who accepts the job of watching a resort in the off-season with his wife and young son. The son has the gift of “the shining”; Jack has the gift of writer’s block. Not helping matters is the fact that the resort is oppressive and lonely in the off-season, and that horrible things happened there, and that it’s probably haunted. Will they survive the winter? You probably already know. After watching Moon, I’m betting you’ll be in the mood to find out all over again.

Moon: A-

The Shining: A