Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011)

In 2009, Duncan Jones debut, Moon, was released. He had written and directed the film and was quickly catapulted to the top of up and coming young directors. Having written that film, as well as directing it, he proved he could craft a deeply thoughtful film about the nature of identity with a warm, clear eyed humanity at its heart. It was great science fiction for adults. Source Code is Jones second outing, a film which is equally successful in fulfilling it's aims, though those aims are very different.

Source Code is about an army helicopter pilot who suddenly wakes up on a train in suburban Chicago, in a body that is not his own. Following eight minutes of the kind of disturbance which would be expected from waking up suddenly in someone else's body, the train blows up. And then Captain Colter Stevens (played effectively by Jake Gyllenhall), wakes up again, this time inside some kind of small pod or cockpit, with an Air Force officer speaking to him through a monitor, attempting to glean from him any information he may have been able to learn about the nature of the cause of the explosion. The point of all this is that Capt. Stevens is part of a program called The Source Code, which can send a person backwards in time, into the shoes of another person, during a specific event for eight minutes at a time. The trains explosion is the event under investigation this time, and Capt. Stevens is sent into this event to attempt to discover who planted the bomb, in hopes of preventing a second attack, the threat of a dirty bomb being detonated in the middle of downtown Chicago.

Source Code is a very good popcorn movie. I should make clear that I have nothing at all against popcorn movies. I have a definite distaste for any kind of movie which is so cynically derivative that it never attempts to have it's own voice or any film which never attempts to develop anything like story, character or narrative themes because it's counting on the the audiences familiarity with the tropes and clichés of the genre of film it's attempting to imitate. There are great popcorn movies, but it's also probably the kind of movie which is most often lazily thrown together with the hopes that the audiences will see some exciting but familiar scenes in a trailer and flock to the theaters. Duncan Jones has succeeded in crafting a popcorn movie that is exciting, compelling, smart, and has the same warm heart that made Moon such a special film. He demonstrates that he can make a more mainstream science fiction adventure film which is a cut above the majority of other big budget science fiction films by focusing on characters who have a fundamental decency at their core and by presenting the audience with philosophical conundrums that aren't easily solved. He also proves he can take a script written by someone else and carry it through to developing it into a film that demonstrates the same degree of confidence, understanding and ability equal to that of a film he had written himself. Source Code manages to strike a strange balance by only really being about explosions and the trappings of the action/adventure genre in a secondary way. The real story of Source Code is in Captain Colter Stevens, his choices in the face of what he's presented with, and the actions he chooses to take. Jake Gyllenhaal exudes a basic, simple decency that makes him one of the more believable and authentic "movie stars" working in Hollywood today. He takes some difficult material and makes it very easy for the audience to get on board and go for the ride that he is trying to convince them to take. In the beginning of the film, his dis-ease with the situation he finds himself in is perfectly offset by the way he plays the characters military background.
Michelle Monaghan plays opposite Gyllenhaal as Christina Warren, the traveling companion and romantic interest of the man whose body Gyllenhaal is dumped into. Monaghan has had very few opportunities to demonstrate her talents as an actress. Most of her other roles have been in light romantic comedies and a few other big budget action films that cast her as the necessary and too standard love interest. Although she is cast again as the love interest opposite the films primary protagonist, Source Code is somewhat different from the roles she's had in other action films in that this one is at the very center of the films narrative and is the window through which the film makes the journey from being about the kind of nebulous, generic "bomb plot" to being about something more concrete. It becomes very much about Captain Stevens realization that the people on this train that he is trying to save, despite the protestations of the source code's military minders who claim that nothing he changes matters because none of it is actually real, are just people living their lives on a day to day basis, not just numbers of the dead.
Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright play the Air Force officer who is Captain Stevens contact and the scientist who created the source code. Farmiga has been following a renegades path to stardom by passing on many of the kinds of star vehicles up and coming actresses usually jump at to establish their place in the "industry marketplace." Starring in The Departed was the role which afforded her the greatest commercial recognition, but she's been building a reputation as a strong and versatile actress by taking smart, well written roles and giving great performances in those roles. She brings some real subtlety to her role as Colleen Goodwin, adding another performance to that growing reputation. Jeffrey Wright does a great job as he venal and ambitious scientist in charge of the source code program, a villainous role he hasn't had the opportunity to sink his teeth into. Wright is one of the most unfortunately over looked actors in Hollywood. He's a great actor with a powerful intensity which can be beautifully mixed with a touching sense of the more fragile aspects of humanity. Here he proves he can just as surely handle bureaucratic villainy. In the early days of the Iron Man franchise, I was hoping to see Wright get a shot as Rhodey, Tony Starks best friend and conscience so that he may gain some of the recognition he deserve.

I can recommend Source Code to just about anyone, without a seconds hesitation. Though it lacks some of the visual elegance and heady themes of Moon, it's still an enjoyable film that provides some thought provoking ideas and questions. It's pacing and performances are sure to keep audiences invested in the story. It's a great spring time film, in that it is an action film, but is also more thoughtful and intelligent than the summer movie season tends to tolerate. With the sure onslaught of very large, very dumb spectacle films on the way, I'd heavily suggest getting out to see Source Code.

Moon (2009, directed by Duncan Jones)

Some of the most thought provoking, powerfully human, beautiful, entertaining, haunting, and heart breaking works of fiction I've ever seen on film or read have been science fiction stories. 

There's something about science fiction that seems to be more well suited to adeptly capture so many elements of what it is to be and the experience of being human than any other genre of fiction. I may have a soft spot in my heart for horror films, a kind of gooey, giddy, unfettered, sloppy teenage romance with horror films that's continued into my adult years, but good science fiction gets my admiration and respect. Added to that, film seems as if it were almost specifically created for science fiction story telling. Few genres are served as perfectly by a visual medium.

I feel that way because of films like Moon. Directed by Duncan Jones and starring Sam Rockwell, this is excellent science fiction. I'd wager it will be considered a classic, and part of the cannon of "must see" science fiction films. It's hard to say much about Moon without spoiling the experience for people who haven't  seen it. I'd absolutely suggest that if you haven't seen Moon you go into it knowing as little as possible about it. That being said, I knew more about it than I probably should have, and obviously, I still think it was a great film. I'm giving you the choice by not revealing anything that would take away from the impact of the film. If you want to know more of the actual story than that, you'll have to look elsewhere.

What I can tell you about the story is that Sam Bell is the sole technician in an almost completely automated operation extracting an element from the surface of the moon that has solved Earth's energy problems. Sam has been at this base on the moon, attending the machines, collecting the element (Helium-3) when cannisters on the harvesters are full and sending it back to Earth. When we meet him, Sam has apparently been on the moon, alone, for three years. In two weeks his contract will be up, and he'll be able to go home. Unfortunately, while heading out to collect a full cannister of Helium-3 from one of the harvesters, Sam has an accident, at which point, things get interesting, really, really interesting.

To some of you, that might sound like the kind of geektastic, hard core science fiction stuff that makes certain varieties of science fiction so very unattractive to most adults. I understand that, but what that synopsis doesn't tell you is that those details are the set up for the story. The real story is what happens from the accident on, and it is a very completely human story, more about Sam Bell than the moon, some made up element, harvesting on the moon or any of that. It's about Sam, our ideas about identity, what it is to be human, how it is we relate to ourselves and each other and it does all of it with authentic heart, subtle intelligence, and exquisite film making.

Moon is able to take on some big, heady, adult themes and make them personal in way that gets them away from being purely intellectual exercises. I enjoyed Richard Kelly's The Box, but I recognize that one of it's problems is the fact that it's intellectual nature doesn't make for the kind of compelling film making that a general non science fiction geek can identify with. Moon is an utterly compelling piece of film making, in the most human storytelling tradition.

You can not discount the importance of Sam Rockwell's performance to the success of this film. Rockwell has literally ninety eight or ninety nine percent of the screen time in the film. Other than a few minutes of video feed coming from Earth, and Kevin Spacey as the disembodied voice of Gerty, the robot/automation which has been Sam's only companion over the past three years. There just isn't another human being for the audience to start taking this journey with or sympathizing with, it's that simple. The thing is, Rockwell is absolutely phenomenal. I posted something earlier today on Facebook about having watched this last night, and that I couldn't stop thinking about it today, and a friend commented that the he would probably not have enjoyed the film if anyone else had been in Rockwell's role. I think that's a good call because not only can I not think of any other actor possibly having played this role, I can't think of an actor I would have sympathized or empathized with more than Rockwell. That authentic and honest heart in this movie is half to seventy five percent Rockwell's performance. I'd have to give credit for the remaining percentage would be due to the storytelling choices Duncan Jones makes, but there isn't enough praise available to me for Rockwell's performance. It is just so honest and so real and so understandable, it's completely disarming. I'm honestly disappointed Rockwell wasn't nominated for an Academy Award. This is the kind of role which the Academy usually trips over itself to give away awards to and I honestly think Rockwell is the victim of the Oscars trying to answer a very large and very loud community that has been increasingly critical of it. Too bad Rockwell is better in this role than most of those past Oscar bait nominations could have dreamed of being.

It's fairly obvious that a great deal of time, effort and care were put into this film. The production design is wonderful. The inside of the moon station is believably functional, and well designed because it continues to be interesting even though we spend the majority with it and it never gets boring or overwhelms the story or character. And the special effects are awesome. Not necessarily in the big, splashy, "look at how cool my special effects are" kind of way, but just in their subtle beauty and the fact that they all do have a very palpable reality and weight to them. All of it works together and is so deeply integrated that it makes me excited to see what Duncan Jones will do in the future. One of the problems that often comes up in sci-fi films or films that involve effects is that they don't seem to be a part of or integrated in the world the film exists in. Moon succeeds at avoiding that pit fall so well, I honestly didn't think about the effects until I was thinking about writing this. The fact that I was watched a film set in a near future, in a moon base, and didn't think about the effects at all, is a huge testament to the effects department, specifically because Moon is not the kind of film who's effects you should be thinking about. It should never be taking attention away from the character work in a film like this and it never does, while still being beautiful and interesting.

In the past year few years, we've had a few very good science fiction films. The Star Trek reboot was well done, exciting and fun. But, it was definitely more popcorn and action film than real, adult science fiction film. District 9 was the perfect middle ground film. It was exciting and fun, action packed, but also had a real story with great character development, an awesome character, great effects and the whole nine yards. Moon follows in the path of earlier classic science fiction like Blade Runner, the original Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey. But, Moon as much as it is in keeping with the thoughtful, honest nature of those films, it is much warmer and more heart felt and warm.

I can't recommend this highly enough.