MOON – AN EXAMINATION OF WHAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN

SHORT TAKE:

Thoughtful, low key and intriguing sci fi exploration of the definition of a human.

WHO SHOULD WATCH:

Adults only for language, graphic depictions of radiation sickness and the topics of death, loneliness and the marketing of human life.

LONG TAKE:

Sam Rockwell is an amazing actor. I have sung his praises in other outings like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, (SEE RADIO SHOW HERE and the REVIEW HERE) and his stint as Bob Fosse in the miniseries Fosse/Verdun. But my favorite performance of his will always be the first one I ever saw him in, Galaxy Quest, the parody / love letter to Star Trek.

SPOILERS BUT AS FEW AS POSSIBLE

So I was duly intrigued by a story that would see Rockwell go back out into space. In Moon he does just that. Moon is a tour-de-force, almost a one man show.

I warn you I’m going to be a bit disingenuous about this movie because I do not want to spoil it anymore than I have to for the sake of the following analysis. Moon is about a man and a clone. I will tell you that the cleverly written script leaves “Easter eggs” around giving hints.

Set in 2035, the story initially explores an examination of how one copes alone on a solitary mission for an extended period of time. Moon then, by turns, becomes an examination in psychology, a mystery, a buddy movie, and eventually a thoughtful consideration of what it means to be a human with the soul. This last led me to realize that Moon could easily be, whether that was on the mind of the filmmaker or not, an analogy for the in vitro created embryos, especially those abandoned as excess or unwanted by the sperm and egg donors who should have accepted their responsibility as parents.

Sam Bell is alone on a space station. His mission contract is for 3 years, monitoring the mining output of extremely valuable *helium-3 from the Moon.  Sam’s only connection to Earth is from one-way video messages of his wife and baby daughter. His only companion or foil for his comments is GERTY who looks more like a Welcome Wagon than even a robot and is voiced by the now infamous Kevin Spacey, who’s measured tones, (giving the devil his due), attempt to offer Sam what limited comfort of which it is capable.

Unlike other writers who agonize over choosing just the right name for their characters, Jones did not, apparently, give it much thought. Lest you were wondering, GERTY is not an acronym but just a name, perhaps, as has been speculated by admirers of the film, chosen for Christopher E Gerty, a NASA aerospace engineer, or perhaps for its similarity to the first five letters on the top line of a standard keyboard – QWERTY.  Sam, the main character’s first name, is the actor’s first name. The harvesters are named after the four authors of the Gospel: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which one might think brings a gravitas of meaning, but Jones, himself, has said they were only chosen because he wanted four names that went together.

Sam Bell becomes desperate for any kind of human interaction, longing for personal communication, but forgets that one should be careful for what one wishes as information can be as heartbreaking as it is educational.

Rockwell does a terrific job, even landing his performance in a list of one of the top 10 most egregious Oscar snubs. Rockwell’s Sams are at once the exact same but completely different. One Sam is simply further down the road than the other and Rockwell does a magnificent job of making them completely distinguishable, while at the same time leaving the door open for alternative interpretations, such as: is Sam Bell really only losing his mind? (Rest assured, the movie will eventually answer all the pertinent questions). But during the course of the movie Rockwell’s dynamic performance leaves all possibilities viable (pun intended).

The scenes on the surface of the Moon are well done and very believable, especially when considering Moon‘s mini budget of $5,000,000 and scant shooting schedule of 33 days in Shepperton Studios. The director/writer Duncan Jones preferred models to CGI so employed Bill Pearson, the supervising “animator” for Alien, who was happily at loose ends because of a writers’ strike, to create the rovers and harvesters .

First time feature director, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones’ only other claims to fame up to this time were being a commercial director and the son of famous rocker David Bowie. The film even opens with the line: “Where are we now?” the title of one of his father’s songs.

Jones wrote Moon as a vehicle for Sam Rockwell. Jones had been interested in casting Rockwell as a villain in another film, Mute. While Rockwell liked Mute and was tempted, he was tired of playing bad guys. So Rockwell challenged Jones – that if Jones wrote something of the same quality which would trust him, Rockwell, in a leading role, he would do it. So Jones did — and Rockwell agreed.

The soundtrack by Clint Mansell is reminiscent of Philip Glass. Dissonant string chords, heavily rhythmed but mostly without regular tempo, are occasionally interspersed with simple childish tunes which would be at home in a child’s jewelry box. The effect is one of both low level, anxiety driven tension and what a quiet but hostile space environment might sound like were it anthropomorphized to conduct an orchestra. The overall result is both unsettling and lulling.

In philosophizing about where on the spectrum of humanity lies clones, there must come a reckoning as to the significance of other “artificially” created human life. As the conclusion in the favor of those not “born of woman” becomes more and more obvious, there is an inevitability for any thought conscientious person to reach the same judgement concerning those children whose conception took place in a petri dish – the in vitro embryos bred and then left discarded as “extras” and “backups” then ultimately … forgotten to death. The “where” one obtains life is not important. They – both clones and science-driven and conceived embryos – are undeniably human.

When Edward Rutledge protests against John Adams’ assertion that slaves are Americans, John Adams points out, appropriate to that particular historic juncture, in the brilliant musical 1776: “They are people, and they are here. If there’s any other requirement, I haven’t heard it,” regardless of how they arrived. Similarly, I would point out, the only prerequisite to being considered human, with all of the attendant God given rights and dignities, is to be — a human. Doesn’t matter how you arrived: sexual interaction, artificial insemination, petri dish, cloning, or (in the case of extended sci fi examples) transporter accidents – a human is a human and should be treated as such.

Moon makes this point beautifully and with great understatement. And Rockwell is the classy and compelling purveyor of that message. So to paraphrase Horton: A person’s a person, no matter how he got here.

*Helium-3 is a real thing – also called tralphium or helion, it is a light stable isotope of helium which is rare on Earth but is speculated to be more abundant and mineable from the Moon.

JOKER – NIHILISTIC PLOT WASTES JOAQUIN PHOENIX’ INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCE

 

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION OF JOKER REVIEW

SHORT TAKE:

Joaquin Phoenix’ mesmerizing and brilliant performance as Joker is wasted in the nihilistic plot of this realism grounded, extremely disturbing, origin story.

WHO SHOULD GO:

ABSOLUTELY ADULTS ONLY. This is not Caeser Romero. Heck this isn’t even Heath Ledger. Extreme violence, profane language, discussions of child abuse and neglect, demonstrations of mental illness all make for a showing difficult for most adults to see much less children.

LONG TAKE:

Under tour-de-force in the dictionary you should find a picture of Joaquin Phoenix in costume as Joker/Arthur Fleck from the movie of the same name. His performance in and as Joker should go down in cinematic history as a watershed accomplishment in the creation of an onscreen character.

The story in Joker is of a man’s descent into madness, and for Arthur Fleck, while the trip isn’t very long, it is shown in slow motion.

Todd Phillips, writer/director, takes a stab at what could be described as a documentary about the real story behind Joker, from which all of the cartoons and comic books were based, told in an observational style, as though Jane Goodall had hidden cameras on Arthur Fleck instead of gorillas.

Without giving too much away, Arthur is not born but created, as he suffers mentally, emotionally and physically at the hands of a mental health system which fails him, the people who should have protected him, and a violent uncaring culture which takes advantage of his initial simple view of life.

One of the main characters in Joker is invisible – the soundtrack. The music accompanying Joker is incredible, following Arthur like an unseen ghost, drawing in his madness and breathing it out again for others to hear. Hildur Guonadottir, an Icelandic composer, weaves a web of truly haunting cello music which, at turns, lulls and aggressively pursues the listener, echoing Arthur’s multi-faceted insanity: his depressed, hopeless state of mind, his hallucinatory flights of fancy, as well as his manic episodes of single-minded determination.

The cinematography visualized by Lawrence Sher is masterful.  From the grim hues and motifs of rain and shadow, to the camera work which uses techniques such as the “dolly zoom” aka the “Vertigo Effect” where the camera pulls back and zooms forward at the same time – all work together to allow a bleak and twisted perspective into Arthur’s broken mind.

But, most tragic, all this wealth of creativity and talent is ultimately wasted.

While Joker, as I mentioned, can arguably be considered the origin story from which all the other legends and mythology of the D.C. Joker emerge, especially the cartoons, the comics, and Jack Nicholson’s rendition, the viewing of the movie is a long travail of suffering with very little purpose. In films like Les Misérables, for example, the suffering of Fantine and Jean Val Jean is altruistic and ultimately redemptive, teaching humility and mercy to the characters and vicariously to the audience. In Man of La Mancha, the prostitute, Aldonza, is shown literally and figuratively in the ditch in which she self describes as having been born, in order to illuminate how far Don Quixote’s kindness brings her when she reforms. Even silly fare like disaster movies serve as a mechanism for the characters to show courage and self-sacrifice.

In The Dark Knight, Bruce’s losses mold and inspire him into becoming a self-appointed defender of the weak and innocent. And there are Judeo-Christian motifs in the Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne dies to himself everyday, denying his own comfort and pleasures, instead taking on the sins of others, all the while pitted against the remorseless demonic figure of Heath Ledger’s Joker.

Even farces such as Mad Mad Mad Mad World, which feature the ne’erdowell indulgence of greedy impulses by groups of people succumbing to temptations, serve as lessons in horrible warnings against sinking into the mire of one’s baser instincts. The Mad Mad ensemble put themselves through brutal punishments and ultimately go to jail – all while making us LAUGH.

But there is nothing absolutive in Joker, nor are there any hints of a reckoning to come. And there is no proportionate justice for the wicked, especially not for Arthur, no purpose to anyone’s suffering and no humor. Joker is unrelentingly grim, unendingly dark, and grindingly depressing. In the end, the audience is left only with the familiar figure of a boy standing over the dead bodies of his parents and the dancing of Arthur in his Joker costume amidst the rampaging rioters in a burning Gotham.

Joker does serve as a demonstration in favor of institutionalizing the mentally disturbed as opposed to releasing into the “wild” those incapable of functioning in society.

It also serves as a horrible warning against the efficacy of vigilante justice as Arthur quickly moves from killing in self defense, to murder in order to cover his actions, to vengeance against those he believes have harmed him, to serving as judge, jury and executioner against those he deems as “awful”.

But there is nothing redemptive, or self-sacrificing about Joker’s actions. There is no moral base from which Arthur even attempts to rationalize his behavior. There is nothing to learn from the pain which Arthur endures or inflicts.

Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2) is his exhausted single-mother neighbor Sophie, Brett Cullen (Dark Knight Rises) plays Thomas Wayne, Douglas Hodge makes a singular impression as Alfred Pennyworth, one of the only characters in the movie whose focus is not on themselves, as his primary concern is to protect Bruce, and Dante Pereira-Olson plays young Bruce.

Robert De Niro has a small role, as talk show host Murray Franklin. DeNiro’s presence is delicious irony. De Niro has played both a character as equally as unhinged as Arthur in Taxi Driver and as demented a fan who faces off against an idealized talk show host in the lesser known King of Comedy. DeNiro’s resume is incredible, featuring a list of movies with enough quality and variety to have secured the careers of a dozen actors: the casual, criminal violence in the characters of The Godfather II, The Irishman, and Cape Fear, the flawed heroes struggling in the dark worlds of Midnight Run, Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver, the boxer in Raging Bull, the captain of a fantasy ship in the light farce Stardust, the aging lead in the romantic comedy The Intern, the slaver turned priest in The Mission, the grim and frightening Al Capone in The Untouchables, the moving victim of catatonia in Awakenings. De Niro is impossible to pin down. Admittedly, it is a testament to the quality to which the filmmakers were aiming in Joker, that the legendary De Niro, himself a master at his craft, would agree to participate.

Unfortunately, the abundance of talent in Joker does not resolve the ultimate meaninglessness of the plot. The audience, much like Arthur, suffers pointlessly in following Arthur’s moral and mental descent.

While Joaquin Phoenix’ performance is mesmerizing and probably should serve in every acting class as a “how to create a character on screen” and while the director and the music serve, with masterful art, to bring us into Arthur’s state of mind and point of view, the journey ultimately has no end, no goal, and no exit strategy from the depths into which Arthur is thrown or the hole he continues to dig at the bottom of his well.

As of the writing of this article Joker is the highest grossing R-rated movie ever made. And it is disturbing to consider that such a pointlessly violent and unrepentantly dark film should attract so much attention.

If you are a student of acting, Joker is worth enduring for Phoenix’ performance. But for those just seeking entertainment or an extension to the D.C. world of Batman and Joker, give this one a miss and re-watch 2008’s The Dark Knight.