In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)
Directed by Jim Mickle
No — In the Shadow of the Moon is not especially woke, scoring 38 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
In the Shadow of the Moon arrives as a Netflix science fiction thriller with a lunar-epiphany time-travel mechanism, a Philadelphia cop who spends three decades unraveling it, and an ambition that its mixed reviews suggest it did not entirely earn.
Consciousness Markers
The plot's central revelation is that the victims are members of a white nationalist militia whose terrorism triggers a future civil war, making white supremacy the explicit engine of the story's conflict.
The film features a Black woman (Cleopatra Coleman) as the central antagonist/protagonist figure, a Black man (Bokeem Woodbine) as the partner, and a South Asian actor (Rudi Dharmalingam) as the pivotal physicist, giving it a notably diverse principal cast for a genre thriller.
The white-nationalist-triggers-civil-war premise carries an implicit political message, but it is delivered through plot mechanics rather than explicit sermonizing or direct address.
The time-traveling killer is a capable woman and the protagonist's granddaughter, but the film frames her as a tragic instrument of a mission rather than advancing any explicit feminist thesis.
No LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or themes appear anywhere in the narrative.
No environmental or climate themes are present.
The film contains no critique of capitalism, wealth, or class structures.
No body positivity themes or messaging are present.
No neurodivergence themes or neurodivergent-coded characters are present.
The film is a fictional time-travel thriller set in the recent past and near future; it does not reinterpret or revise actual historical events.
Why it received this score
In the Shadow of the Moon arrives as a Netflix science fiction thriller with a lunar-epiphany time-travel mechanism, a Philadelphia cop who spends three decades unraveling it, and an ambition that its mixed reviews suggest it did not entirely earn. Jim Mickle directs with energy and no small amount of nerve. The plot, in which a woman travels backwards through time killing members of a white nationalist militia before they can trigger a civil war in 2024, is assembled from familiar parts and held together by conviction alone.
The casting is the film's quietest distinction. Cleopatra Coleman carries the time-traveling assassin with a stillness that suits a character who has already lived through the worst of it, and Bokeem Woodbine and Rudi Dharmalingam fill out the supporting ranks in ways a genre thriller of this budget rarely bothers to arrange. None of it is announced. The film casts well and moves on, which is the correct approach and a genuine rarity.
Where the film does make an argument, it makes it through plot mechanics. The revelation that the victims are domestic terrorists, and that their violence produces a future civil war, places white supremacy at the center of the machinery without a single character pausing to explain the theme. That restraint is admirable. The trade-off is that the political content lands as a twist instead of a thesis, and the musings on fate and grandfather-granddaughter obligation get buried under the cop procedural furniture. It is a strange, unwieldy object. It is also, intermittently, a compelling one.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
In 1988, Philadelphia police officer Thomas "Locke" Lockhart, hungry to become a detective, begins tracking a serial killer whose crimes defy scientific explanation. When the killer mysteriously resurfaces nine years later, Locke's obsession with finding the truth threatens to destroy his career, his family, and possibly his sanity.
Questions about In the Shadow of the Moon
Is In the Shadow of the Moon woke?
No — In the Shadow of the Moon is not especially woke, scoring 38 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Based.
Does In the Shadow of the Moon have any woke elements?
3 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Racial Consciousness (65), Representation Casting (60) and Lecture Energy (30). On Racial Consciousness: The plot's central revelation is that the victims are members of a white nationalist militia whose terrorism triggers a future civil war, making white supremacy the explicit engine of the story's conflict.
How does In the Shadow of the Moon compare to other 2019 movies?
It ranks #54 of the 284 films from 2019 we've scored; their average is 22. The wokest is Black Christmas (79).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.