IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON


US, 2019, 115 minutes, Colour.
Boyd Holbrook, Cleopatra Coleman, Bokeem Woodbinie, Michael C.Hall, Rudy Dharmalingam, Al Maini, Quincy Kirkwood, Sarah Dugdale.
Directed by Jim Mickle.


There are various scientific theories put forth in this unusual thriller, time-travelling thriller. One is that Earth comes closer to the moon and there is a path between the present and the future, characters of the future able to come into the present but only for one day.

Initially, the film seems to be a detective investigation, the setting in the 1980s, the main detective’s wife in labour, dying, his daughter’s surviving. But, he and his partner have seen a mysterious character whom they think is responsible for a murder. The detective becomes preoccupied with this until the next period in the shadow of the moon, in the 1990s. His daughter is growing up, he continues at work, but is fixated, encountering the mysterious character once more. As the decades go by, he becomes something of a loner, obsessed, his brother looking after his daughter who is growing up, going to college then married. And, each time in the shadow of the moon the character comes from the future.

Eventually, there is an explanation (and, more than probably, a thematic and time-travel connection with The Terminator series).

The film continues intriguing as it moves over 30 years of mysterious time travel – and, a Terminator-like solution, whether the future can change the past.

1. The title? Times and tides? Signs-fiction? Futuristic fiction?

2. The film as a crime thriller, detection, a quest, story of family?

3. Philadelphia, the city and views, the bus, the hamburger joint, the concert stage? Police officers, the streets, subways, hospitals? The country sequences, the warehouses, the sea and the shore? The musical score?

4. The blend of genres? Coherent? The events and their logic/or not?

5. The timespan is, the premise about the moon, the bridges from the future to the past? Every nine years?

6. The issue of travel, time travel, ageing or not, moral purposes in returning, changes, ageing or not, changes fixed and unchangeable? Travel to remedy the ills of the world? The suppression of fascist attitudes?

7. Tom Locke, his story, at home with his wife, her pregnancy, waking up, breakfast, ordinary? On the night shift? His partner? The crimes and the mysterious deaths, the bleeding? The mysterious figure in black? The pursuits? Her eluding the pursuits? Each time occasion, the Partner breaking his leg, the figure in the bullet and buckshot later?

8. The impact of the three deaths, the concert, the burger, the boss and the crash? And the police investigation? The anniversary, the protests, the criticisms of the police? The effect on Locke?

9. The hospital, lock arriving late, his wife and the bleeding, the birth of his daughter, holding her?

10. Holt, detection, his ambitions, the interviews with the suspects? Yet supporting of Locke? Getting information for him at later times? And his raising Amy when Locke collapsed?

11. From the 1980s to the 1990s, the figure returning? Amy and her age, the return on her birthday, her work in the office 2006, lock and his deterioration, his appearance? Amy and her studies? Talking with her father? Look at the sea? The intervention of the scientist, his attempted explanations of the Moon and the bridge? His not being listened to? The dead India log? Lock and his pursuing these leads?

12. 2015, lockers homeless, by the Sea, Amy and her marriage, pregnancy? Meeting with Holt, getting addresses? The discovery of the links with the fascist movement? The connections? The scientist, his present, experiments?

13. The figure, appearing as always, looking the same, lock following her, the beach, the drain? The past modes of getting back to the future? The communication, her explanation, the revelation that she was his granddaughter and the future? Her gratitude?

14. Lock, going back to his daughter, the birth of the child, is holding her?

15. The future, the image of the collapsing office, its restoration? An entertaining story – and how coherent?