In preparation for a film panel at WisCon 37, I’ve been catching up on my sci-fi and fantasy films. (More about my WisCon panels in another post.) So I finally got around to seeing Duncan Jones’ mesmerizing film Moon.

To dismiss this film as an ordinary sci-fi thriller is really an injustice, since Moon pays homage to such great sci-fi films as 2001: A Space Odyssey while engaging on a very deep level with the problem of identity and the nature of justice.

Astronaut Sam Bell (portrayed by the extraordinary Sam Rockwell) is working alone on a lunar harvesting station that supplies the earth with most of its clean power. He’s on a three year contract, with no one to talk to but his computer (voiced by the smiley-faced Kevin Spacey, shown below).

Sounds like a recipe for paranoia, right? Or maybe something far worse than paranoia.

More than anything, Moon reminds me of the Ursula Le Guin story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” in which the young people of Omelas discover that the price they must pay for their cultured utopian society is the terrible suffering of a single helpless child. Most people in Omelas somehow find a way to accept the scapegoat’s misery. But others walk away, refusing to participate in a society whose foundation is cruelty.

Sam Rockwell is exceptionally good in Moon, his character ranging from a petulant jerk to a helpless, devastated father. We have to watch him suffer: director Duncan Jones makes sure of that.