Moonlight Mile Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)October 4th, 2002
MOONLIGHT MILE
--------------
Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal, "The Good Girl") is in a suspended state. Sideswiped by the death of his fiance Diana, the only child of Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and Jo Jo (Susan Sarandon) Floss, Joe has now become a surrogate son to them, letting their needs overshadow his. But Joe's got a painful secret that becomes more and more difficult to keep once he meets Bertie (Ellen Pompeo) in writer/director Brad Silberling's ("City of Angels") "Moonlight Mile."
Silberling's story is strikingly similar to last year's "In the Bedroom." An only child is killed in the midst of a domestic dispute and the child's lover and parents are left to grieve and deal with a court trial in a small New England town (the fictional town of Cape Ann, actually Gloucester and Marblehead, MA). But Silberling's tale evolved from personal experience (then girlfriend, actress Rebecca Schaeffer of TV's "My Sister Sam," was murdered in 1989) and his look at grief is surprisingly tinged with humor.
Silberling stuffs a lot into his screenplay - the odd ways people react to grief, the things that keep a seemingly disparate couple together (the Flosses are reflected more extremely in the husband who attempted to kill the wife who decides to testify for his defense), the difficult, but ultimately healing nature of truth and even a death penalty debate.
On the day of Diana's funeral, Jo Jo rants against well meaning people, Ben compulsively cleans (in addition to his lifelong Pavlovian response to ringing
telephones), Joe hyperventilates in response to cliches from strangers and Nixon, Joe and Diana's retriever, projectile vomits. In the days after, Jo Jo
has writer's block while Ben throws himself into the commercial real estate business that kept him from knowing his daughter better. Joe drifts until he meets Bertie, Cape Ann's lone postal clerk, while intercepting his own wedding
invitations.
Silberling's attempt to symbolically link Joe and Bertie through a set of missing partners and a real estate deal is handled awkwardly and unbelievably and a try for whimsy via nods to Italy feels forced, but his dialogue is very true, particularly in the mouths of his two main female characters.
This is Sarandon's film. She becomes Jo Jo, a mother embodying the spirit of a dead daughter, a rebel, a wit, a wag. Jo Jo's speech to Joe
about the meaning of home is the cornerstone of the entire film. Newcomer Pompeo makes a powerful debut with the conflicted strong/frail, tomboy/sylph Bertie, who Silberling's given an odd way of expressing herself ('Snot check' she demands of Joe after an emotional moment). Hoffman plays Ben as a fish out of water when he's not working, but his ticks show his acting. There's a little bit of "Rain Man" in
Ben's neuroses. Gyllenhaal, whose character is kept in limbo too long by Silberling, gives a mushy performance, playing Joe as a boy, not a man. Notable support comes from Holly Hunter, as the Floss' straight shooting lawyer and Aleksia Landeau, marvelously awful as a vulture who sweeps in on her dead friend's leavings.
Production Designer Missy Stewart ("Good Will Hunting") and Costume Designer Mary Zophres ("The Man Who Wasn't There") get early 1970's middle class coastal Massachusetts down with the beauty of autumn contrasted against the golds and avocados of the decade. It's refreshing to see interiors designed that look like places real people live and work. The soundtrack reflects both the time and the film's themes with such tunes as "I Want to Take You Higher," "I Hear You Knocking" and the titular tune.
"Moonlight Mile" is like a defanged "In the Bedroom," but it finds emotional truth amidst its gimmickry.
B
For more Reeling reviews visit www.reelingreviews.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
