My Son and I Go to the Moon

There are few pleasures that compare to going to a film knowing nothing about it and finding it completely absorbing. This can really only happen shortly after release, before the trailers hit, and the buzz begins.

There seems to be a recent trend where films of a certain nature are introduced sparingly in select theaters in major cities.

I drove with my son to Times Square Sunday night (June 18) to see Moon, starring Sam Rockwell. We saw it on the fifth floor of the AMC Theatre, nearly halfway to the moon itself.

The deepest experience it communicates is sudden loneliness, in which there is a moment when the character suddenly discovers the extreme loneliness of his condition. I got the same feeling in Revolutionary Road towards the end when the Kate Winslet character stands by herself in the backyard and at moments sprinkled throughout the television series Mad Men.

This movie also has introductory power. Even if you saw Sam Rockwell in the Green Mile or any of a number of other movies or television shows, this is the film that will introduce him to you.

Twenty-six days later, today, Moon sent me back to my bookshelf and a short story by Joseph Conrad, “The Secret Sharer,” which takes place on a vessel, too, where there are parallel events, and the mood is identical. Although the inevitable comparisons will be made to the 2001: A Space Odyssey, my personal antecedent is this story, read many years ago, enigmatic and unsettling.