Review

Review Date: 6-October-02
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Moonlight Mile (2002)

In my Preview Review for "Moonlight Mile" a couple months ago, I questioned whether the premise of a young man's relationship with his dead fiancée's parents would be enough to fill an entire movie. The answer is yes, but only because this idea isn't the only thing driving the film. In addition to grief (which most reviewers are homing in on, although it isn't the core of the film), "Moonlight Mile" touches upon husbands and wives, cowardice and courage, guilt and compassion, love and friendship, and being honest with yourself. It's a mixed bag of big concepts which produces a sometimes touching, sometimes frustrating combination of solid personal drama and kitschy movie-of-the-week didacticism.

The busy Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Joe Nast, a young man with horrible 1970s hair whose fiancée has been killed in a freak shooting just days before their wedding. (In all fairness, I should tell you that the movie takes place in the '70s, so he has an excuse.) Having come to stay with his future in-laws for several weeks before his nuptials, Joe remains there after the murder because he feels obligated to help them through the crisis and doesn't have anywhere else to go. Thus he forms a strange bond with JoJo Floss (Susan Sarandon), a feisty writer, and Ben Floss (Dustin Hoffman), a passive-aggressive real estate agent, who both turn to him as a surrogate child. Their relationships are strained, however, when Joe almost immediately begins to fall for a spunky but bereaved postmistress/cocktail waitress named Bertie (Ellen Pompeo) and questions his desire to form a business partnership with Ben. The movie follows these characters as they stumble along in the aftermath of their losses and become entwined in a momentous real estate deal, the trial of the dead woman's killer, and the consequences of an important secret before coming to grips with themselves and each other.

I was expecting this movie to feature a lot of emotional, tear-filled scenes about the weight of sorrow and having to let go and move on, but in this I was pleasantly surprised. Joe and the Flosses do most of their serious grieving off-screen, and we are never allowed to form any connection with the murdered bride so as to share in their pain. The movie is more about the traits and emotions that motivate each character as he or she tries to move forward, and this is where its strength lies. The picture was written (and directed) by Brad Silberling, who tapped into what he himself experienced after the murder of his fiancée, Rebecca Schaeffer (the young actress, you may recall, who was famously killed by a stalker). The power of "Moonlight Mile" emerges when we feel that we are watching real people in a particular situation, instead of stock players who are meant to teach us a lesson about life. Sarandon and Pompeo are, for this reason, the most compelling of the actors, each giving a very strong portrayal of a woman of spirit who nevertheless has a soft side that needs to be nurtured. (Pompeo, whom I have never seen before, is a real treasure, very unusual and completely engaging.) In addition, Silberling adds some small touches here and there (e.g., the Italian vocabulary notes left all over the house in anticipation of a honeymoon in Rome) that bring the story off the screen and into your veins.

But the intimate appeal of "Moonlight Mile" is not consistently maintained. When it veers away from the motivations of the characters, the real emotion is forced to take a back seat to standard Hollywood scenes and the bigger-picture lessons that Silberling (or maybe the studio who financed him) unfortunately thought were necessary in such a film. There are a couple of jarring attempts at comedy which, I suppose, are meant to show that life is a quirky affair even during times of stress, but they don't really work. In addition, the few slick episodes that rush important moments (Joe and Bertie's first dance) or impart deep truths ("find your home") add nothing but fluff and pale in comparison to the smaller, more immediate interactions (Joe's odd little run-in with a barkeep who sees right through him).

I'm sorry to say that another weak point of the movie is Gyllenhaal, whose rising star I have been pleased to witness. There is a definite subtext of stronger women and weaker men that runs throughout the film (which bothered me, but I'm not sure how intentional it is), so both Hoffman and Gyllenhaal have harder jobs to make Joe and Ben as interesting as JoJo and Bertie. Still, Hoffman lets loose just enough spunk to look alive, whereas Gyllenhaal exhibits a chronic droopiness which suggests that he may in fact be the perfect husband for a corpse. The kid has got talent and I've seen him smile once or twice to great effect --- hopefully he'll realize that playing down doesn't necessarily mean playing dead.

With its similar theme of New England parents coping with the murder of a child, I fear that "Moonlight Mile" may be compared with last year's "In the Bedroom" and found to be less dramatic, since it's not nearly as histrionic. But whereas "In the Bedroom" was about broad generalizations of women and men (specifically, how women destroy men), "Moonlight Mile" is, more or less, about individual people --- how they make mistakes, grope towards understanding, and relate to each other in different ways according to their own fears, guilt, and needs. On this personal, real-life level, it's a story worth telling. Too bad it's hampered by moments of big, self-important Hollywood drama.

Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.