I’ve often wondered where the hell David Bowie came from. I know… Brixton, right?… but come on! Those records? That sound? That warbeling voice and the obsession with the planets? The notion of interstellar loneliness being universal? His genius knack for hooks and tones that sounded like they were from the planets he was singing about? Surely he came together first in a cosmic rush of light somewhere on the edge of one of the moons of Jupiter (one of the obscure ones)  and then was placed inside a warm clear womb which floated toward earth and then landed on Brixton.

It’s no surprise then that the alien’s son Duncan “Zowie Bowie” Jones’ first feature Moon touches on just about every science fiction cliche there is; An astronaut (Sam Rockwell) is alone in a station on the moon pining for his wife (via Solaris) while he talks to a potentially dangerous smooth voiced computer system (via 2001: A Space Odyssey) as he waits out the last few weeks of a three year contract harvesting Helium 3 to power earth.. and then  Jones’, like his father, turns every convention on is ear.

There’s a strange sweetness to the film, not often seen in science fiction films, which rolls along, sometimes untidily, in zero gravity. It never really gets to the point of being truly visually mesmerizing like the films in which it is obviously nodding at and due to some untidy pacing in the first half of the film it nearly trips up but there is such a lovely human quality to it that it almost doesn’t matter. That quality is, without a doubt, Sam Rockwell.

He holds the whole film together (he is the only actor on screen) over 97 minutes and is sickeningly, consistently, unbelievably watchable. As to not give too much away with regards to the way Moon plays out, let it just be said that its a one (or two) man actors workshop. Every emotion is handled with great care by Rockwell, and Jones’ own script glimmers with humor and sadness.

Kevin Spacey lends his lispsy patronising drawl to HAL, err I mean GERTY and manages to deliver a beautiful sense of melancholy through only his voice and a series of emoticons on a 6 x 6 video screen.

Jones’ love for his genre is giddily on display here and for that you can’t help but love him for it as he knowingly tears up the rules you’ve come to associate with sci-fi. It has to be said however, that the influences are sometimes ridiculously, unashamedly on show, the film’s last 10 minutes are a bit of a jumble and it’s attempt at looking at what makes us human and at what makes us lonely has been done before (and better).

But the sheer atmosphere and audacity of delivering a one man show in a little space station is something of a breath of fresh air.  It real bare bones stuff here. Jones even relies on hand crafted small scale models and a minimal score (beautifully orchestrated by Clint Mansell), both nods to an old way of making sci -fi films and is definitely, given the over top pixel beating  on most films set in space these days, something to be held in high regard.

When looking back on the last 10 years of Science Fiction films, hunting deeply for a new Blade Runner, a 2001, a Solaris or any real exercise in space and meaning or parable, anything that stretches beyond a comic book tale about something that makes planets go boom, is difficult to say the least.

He doesn’t quite reach that place but what Ziggy Stardust Jr does do with Moon is set a tiny story in the biggest of spaces and in executing that long forgotten rule of thumb, he delivers a deeply touching film.