A writer in California's Marin County leaves his wife (and four young daughters) for another woman. I'm not quite sure who the audience is for a picture like this. Obviously it's an R-rated film intended for adults, but some of the silly levity--with kids spilling hot chocolate and so on--is so broad that I think it would make most adults uncomfortable (indeed, the film failed at the box-office). As a showcase for the leading actors, Diane Keaton and Albert Finney, it's an erratic mood piece which allows them to blow off emotional steam, but I didn't buy a screaming-match sequence in a restaurant (again, too broad) nor a climactic battle on the tennis court which will leave most viewers cold. No, the best thing in "Shoot The Moon" is the young Dana Hill, who died a few years back of Diabetes-related causes; she was not a natural kid actress (in some of her big scenes, you can feel a mechanical rhythm at work), nor was she adept at subtle emotions (she often zips through at warp speed from A to Z). However, she has a perceptive quality that is rare, and she's very intense. The sequence where she holds her father off with scissors is extremely moving and unsettling, and it's to Hill's credit that a scene like this works at all. "Shoot The Moon" tries for bared emotions and a kind of pent-up, married hostility that few films have explored (maybe Harold Pinter or Ingmar Bergman). It's simply not as entertaining per se as something like "Kramer Vs. Kramer" because of its claustrophobic atmosphere and underpopulated environment. Director Alan Parker tries too hard to liven things up--mostly with crassness--though his joshing isn't in tune with the emotional decay, and the picture leaves you with a peculiar unease. **1/2 from ****
Review of Shoot the Moon
