Moon Above

My husband and I went to see the science fiction film Moon, and it was incredible. Sam Rockwell’s performance was incredible (trying not to give away too much, I will say that he plays the same man at two different points in life, and does an amazing job of portraying the differences in the man’s reactions while still clearly showing that this is the same person).

As a writer, the thing I loved most about this film was the moving subtlety of its script. Like all great science fiction, and perhaps all great stories, this is fundamentally a story about what it is to be human. The writers, Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker, trusted this to come through. They never beat themes over the head. Instead, they allow them to emerge. There are things that become clear about the situation and the story, and the writers trust the viewer to pick up on these things and understand them. I loved the feeling of being trusted as an audience member to understand what I was seeing. Moon is worth watching with an eye toward how powerful an effect can be when it’s allowed to just happen–when the writer resists the urge to over-explain.