Film review: 5/5

I just went to see this incredibly affecting film. Apparently shot on quite a small budget and directed by David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones (formerly Zowie Bowie), this could be a contender for film of the year.

The story is set in the near future, when a new, clean, energy source, Helium 3 is being mined on the moon. Sam Bell is a crew of 1 on a 3 year mission to man the mining machines.

The film is claustrophobic, like the best space films. It is beautifully paced and has you lurching from one theory to another about possible plot turns. The suspense is built up and dashed more than once.

The small cast are superb. Sam Rockwell is utterly compelling as our ‘everyman’ and is on screen throughout. Kevin Spacey is the perfect voice for Sam’s robot companion, Gerty, friendly but slightly other-worldly. I have just realised, writing this, that of course, the ‘wife’ character is an actress (Dominique McElligott) – the film is so believable that I wasn’t even thinking that she wasn’t real!

What makes the film particularly good is the attention to detail with regard to the science of Helium 3 which really has been found on the moon and if we could do nuclear fusion in a controlled environment, really would be a clean source of energy. This is refreshing, given the terrible leaps of faith one has to make in other ‘space’ movies such as Armageddon and Deep Impact!

Set to be a classic of its genre. Go see it!

The official film website can be found here but don’t read the science bit until you’ve seen the film as it contains spoilers without warning!