On January 23, 2009, Duncan Jones' film Moon appeared in the Sundance Film Festival, wowing audiences with its simple story yet heavy concept.
One secret gives the film a single turn - Sam's discovery, while sneaking out of the ship, that there is another Sam. At first, the audience assumes that it is probably just another hallucination, since Sam has multiple hallucinations early in the film from being completely alone on the moon for 3 years. But the audience slowly suspects that the second Sam is real, and their suspicions are confirmed when the Sams find an entire room full of Sam clones.
One Turn Allows Realism and Depth
The clone discovery is the last "twist" that happens in the film (though there are other surprises that deal with the same conspiracy), and it happens a little more than halfway through. The fact that there is only one mystery gives Moon several characteristics that bring it from a "movie" to a "film." First, it gives a greater sense of reality to the situation. Instead of moving from one twist to the other, the discovery can be focused on and observed with a lot of different lenses, which the film provides. For example, we see how both Sam 1 and Sam 2 react to seeing each other, the emotions they experience, the fights they have, and their eventual attempt at living peacefully together, as well as their interactions with the government livefeed and the government's place in the cloning process.
The second function the "single twist" has is that it creates room for the meaning of the film to shine through. The focus of the film is not the fact that there is a secret that is dragged out, or a secret that continues to unlock the door to more secrets, or a secret that is just the beginning of a train of unrelated secrets. The focus of the film is the interaction between the Sams once they figure out the truth, and the fact that though they come from the same person, they are not the same person.
The Question of Clones and Souls
The idea of an independent mind and soul when it comes to clones is one that has been dealt with by many films - Blade Runner, The 6th Day, The Island - and Moon explores the question in a refreshingly non-flashy manner. The first task in front of the Sams is to fully understand that neither of them are "realer" than the other; they are both clones of a man who is currently back on earth, but neither of them are less legitimately human than either each other, or the original Sam. The second task is the quest for heritage - the Sams desire to seek the place where their implanted memories come from - their house, their daughter, their wife.
The film also answers the question artistically; there is no philosophical discussion or debate about what makes them human. The audience can simply observe the different personalities. The first Sam is introverted, cocky, disheveled, desperate, and anxious. The second Sam is condescending, withdrawn, fit, angry, and prone to violence. There is no question that the two bodies share the same memories and are fashioned after the same person yet are completely different people.
The second Sam gives a telling, concluding response to his robot caretaker - GERTY - at the end of the film. When GERTY makes mention of the next clone's "programming," Sam defensively retorts, "Hey. We're people."
Jones' Moon is highly impressive, intuitive, engaging, and inspiring. It demonstrates that knowledge of how to tell an excellent story without the reliance of gimmicks still exists.
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