A Walk on the Moon (1999)

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This film is the basic story of 1969, Marty and Pearl Kantrowitz a couple who married young and have two children, on vacation in upstate NY. Anything north of the city is "upstate" and they take vacation near the well known "Nevele" and Concord Hotels, only at a more down at heel bungalow campground.The atmosphere of the Catskills bungalow and the rather tacky but fun atmosphere is realistic. Tovah Feldshuh as Lillian is excellent, she realizes something is amiss with Pearl and lets her son know, calling him in Brooklyn.The Moon walk itself is secondary to the actual story of America in the turbulent 1960's, Woodstock, and social unrest, but the story is not heavy handed.Nor is it a complete miss like the faint hearted "1969" film with Robert Downey Jr., which attempts to address the same time period in America, and misses the point. Entirely.Pearl Kantrowitz, well portrayed by Diane Lane feels something is missing, she has married too young, and subsequently meets Walker Jerome, a hippie who is known as the "Blouse man" (announced over the intercom by Julie Kavner's unmistakable voice ), when he brings his bus of clothing and jewelry to the camp site. Viggo Mortensen as Walker Jerome, is believable as a young man who eventually gets involved with Pearl, hoping for more.The story rings true because it is simple, but believable and even sad. The affair with him, the ultimate fact that she realizes her life is passing by, but she does love her husband and children as well. and its time to say good bye to lofty dreams. There is a decent soundtrack including Joni Mitchell, and many other gems from that era. Liev Schreiber as Marty Kantrowitz is sympathetic and funny, attempting to dance to Jimi Hendrix at the end of the film.The story is memorable without cheap sentiment, and a rare thing we see from Hollywood deserves praise. It is not a cheap romantic comedy with over the top actors, just a believable vignette which will touch you as the audience.During the credits I noticed it was produced by Dustin Hoffman as well as Tony Goldwyn. Well done. 9/10.

I was 20 in 1969. I wasn't at Woodstock. I was on a Road Trip from New York to Denver and then SF - finding myself - selfishly, just like the people in this movie. The movie encapsulated many experiences in that one summer. Looking back, it took me several years to experience what was covered in this movie. For me, that occurred between 1967 and 1972 -- between Sgt Pepper and Jackson Browne -- between Chicago and Berkeley -- from college, through marriage and divorce, to California freedom. I remember being the guy whose wife needed and found someone else. I remember being the young free spirit dating the divorcée -- or the almost divorcée. Yes, these could have happened to anyone else at any other time. And generational conflicts that marked 1969 - rebellion, loose morals, iconoclasm, etc - did occur at other times in history. But this movie accurately portrayed what I did experience: listening to those songs, attending those kinds of concerts, dating those kinds of girls, just being young, free and ... yes ... selfish. I learned a lot from those experiences. And this movie did an excellent job presenting many of those conflicts, moral choices and learning experiences.

Previous commentator Steve Richmond stated that A Walk On The Moon is, in his words "not worth your $7". I ended up paying a bit more than that to import what is one of the worst-quality DVDs I have yet seen, of this film or any film in existence. Even when you ignore the fact that the DVD is clearly sourced from an interlaced master and just plain nasty to watch in motion, the film has no redeeming qualities (save Anna's presence) to make watching a top quality Blu-Ray transfer worthwhile. Not that this is any fault of the other actors. Liev Schreiber, Diane Lane, Tovah Feldshuh, and Viggo Mortensen all score high on the relative to Anna Paquin acting ability chart. Far more so than Holly Hunter or Sam Neill did in spite of an equally lousy script, anyway. Director Tony Goldwyn's resume is nothing to crow about, but Pamela Gray's resume includes Wes Craven's most dramatic excursions outside of the horror or slasher genre, so one could be forgiven for thinking this is a case of bad direction.As I have indicated already, the sole reason I watched this film is Anna Paquin. In her acting debut, she literally acted veterans of the industry with a minimum of twelve years' experience above hers under the table. While she is not as far ahead of her castmates here, her performance as a girl that starts the piece as a brat and grows into a woman whose world is crashing down around her proves her Oscar was no fluke. For some time I have been stating to friends that she would be the best choice to portray the heroine of my second complete novel, and a dialogue seventy-three minutes into this film is yet another demonstration of why. This woman could literally act the paint off walls. Anna aside, only Liev Schreiber comes close to eliciting any sympathy from an audience. Sure, his character spends the vast majority of the film neglecting a wife with an existential crisis, but he plays the angered reaction of a man who feels cheated brilliantly. I should know, even if it is not from the same circumstances here.Viggo Mortensen also deserves credit for his portrayal of a travelling salesman, although perhaps not to the same extent. In a manner of speaking, he is the villain of the piece, but he successfully gives the character a third dimension. Yes, his actions even after the whole thing explodes are underhanded, but not many men would act any differently in his situation. Nobody wants to be the other man in this kind of messed-up situation, so Viggo deserves a lot of credit for giving it a try here. Unfortunately, these are all participants in a story about a woman who feels trapped in a stagnant marriage where Tovah Feldshuh tells us that the Mills And Boon archetype of women being the only ones who feel life is passing by simply does not exist. Either writer Pamela Gray or director Tony Goldwyn thought they could just put this line into the film without thinking of how the audience might receive it. Anna even gets to speak the mind of the audience when she asks Diane who she is to be lecturing anyone about responsibility.That said, the film does have a couple of things besides Anna going for it. Mason Daring's original music, while not standing out in any way, gives the film a certain feeling of being keyed into the time depicted that helps where the other elements do not. Roger Ebert is right when he points out that while Liev is a great actor, putting him alongside Viggo in the story of a woman forced to choose between her marriage and her fantasy is a big mistake. He is also very correct in that when the film lingers over scenes of Lane and Mortensen skinny-dipping or mounting one another under a waterfall, it loses focus from being a story of a transgression and becomes soft porn. The film seems terminally confused about the position of its story. No matter how many times I rewatch Liev's scenes, I cannot help but feel he has been shortchanged in the direction or editing. One does not have to make their leads particularly handsome or beautiful, but taking steps to make them the most interesting or developed characters in the piece would have gone a long way.Ebert also hits the nail right on the head when he says that every time he saw Anna on the screen, he thought her character was where the real story lay. Stories about the wife feeling neglected and running into the arms of a man who seems interesting or even dangerous are a dime a dozen, to such an extent now that even setting the story in parallel with an event as Earth-shattering as the moon landing will not help. In spite of feeling revulsion at the manner in which her character's story is presented, Anna might as well be walking around with a neon sign above her head asking the audience if they would not prefer to see the whole thing through her eyes. While I am all too aware that it is difficult to control exactly which character your audience will find the most interesting from your cast, it is very much as if they did not bother to try with Lane and Schreiber. Fans of these two would be well advised to look elsewhere. Hopefully by now my ramblings about the respective performances will give some idea of where the whole thing went wrong.I gave A Walk On The Moon a three out of ten. Anna Paquin earns it a bonus point with one of her best performances (and that is saying something).

i saw the film quite some time ago, but i'd like to see it again now, to see how i feel about it. it was a very thought evoking film for a woman over 40. diane lane is a fabulous actress. what an effect the movie had on me. i was so sorry to see her have the affair with someone she didn't know or understand, at all. her husband was a nice, hardworking man. the children were good kids. even the mother-in-law was not bad, and seemed to care about all of them as a family. we should never throw away someone good for someone evil. i found it hard to believe that the husband could forgive her, and take her back. what was once his wife, became something unforgivable. just the way the pubescent daughter wanted, immediately, to sleep with some boy -- any boy at all. i'm not sure of the reason that men cheat, because i'm a female. but i do think that women cheat for other and different reasons. i'm not so sure of those reasons, either. possibly boredom. possibly a lack of attention, or not-so-good sex. i don't know.