50x3: Moon (O-1)

For the first film on Oscar's list I watch one that I was not too familiar with. I had heard about it and had seen the odd poster for it, but really had no idea what it was about.

I will say this before I start, there is really no way to talk about this film without spoilers - so if you have not seen it and plan to do not read anymore.

Moon is a film in the same vein as Cast Away or Buried in that for pretty much the entire film we are with just one human character. Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, who is on a 3-year mission on the moon to oversee harvesting that is done there for a gas called helium-3 that is sent to Earth.

Bell has a wife, Tess (Dominique McElligott) and a young daughter Eve (Kaya Scoderlario), which are the only things really keeping him going while spending his days alone. Them and his only other 'friend' a robot named GERTY (Kevin Spacey).

With only two weeks remaining on his mission, Bell gets in an accident while out on the moon surface trying to recover a helium-3 canister. He awakens in the infirmary by GERTY with no memory of the accident. He overhears GERTY speaking with the Lunar Industries, who is in charge, despite the fact that communications have been knocked out for years.

GERTY is to keep Bell in the space station and not let him out as a rescue team comes to get him. Believing something is not right, Bell creates a fake issue to get out of the station and finds an unconscious person inside a crashed rover - which turns out to be himself.

As it turns out there is no 3-year mission. Long ago a man named Sam Bell volunteered to have himself cloned so that these clones could harvest on the moon risk free. Of course, all of Bell's memories and thoughts were left inside his clones - so they longed to get home and see their wife and new child.

But, there was no return home for these clones. Their 3-year mission was (and this is just what I gathered) actually their life expectancy. Once their 3-year mission was over - GERTY would 'awaken' another clone and the cycle would begin all over again.

In Moon Rockwell did have a few more things to interact with than Hanks did in Cast Away. Hanks' lone companion was a volleyball that couldn't speak, while Rockwell had a robot that could interact and eventually another clone to speak with.

But, Rockwell still did an amazing job in the role. Plus the difference between the two clones was night and day. Despite not having much color in the film, the views were outstanding - especially when they journeyed out onto the surface of the moon.

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