Moonlight and Valentino
Okay, first things first. This is a chick movie
and an unabashed tear-jerker. If you want
something light-hearted, go somewhere else!
That being said, I love this movie. It starts with
a series of disjointed images of four women,
(Elizabeth Perkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Whoopi
Goldberg, and Kathleen Turner) going
through their daily lives. When Rebecca's
(Perkins) husband is killed, the four women,
and the plot, start to draw closer together.
Rebecca, of course, goes through a series of
grief-stricken days while her friends and
family try awkwardly to comfort and console
her. Perkins is excellent, especially in the
scenes right after Ben's death). Paltrow
shines in the role of Luce, Rebecca's sister.
Luce is still brooding over death of their
mother about 14 years ago, not to mention
being insecure and inexperienced. Turner is
wonderfully cast as Alberta, the tough
businesswoman who was the girls'
stepmother for 10 years. Although she and
their father are now divorced, she still wants
to have a place in the girls' lives. Although at
first she seems manipulative and cold, as you
watch the movie you come to realize that she
only wants what's best for them. Goldberg
plays Rebecca's best friend who tries hard to
be sympathetic but who is ultimately too lost
in her own marital difficulties to do so. Finally,
Jon Bon Jovi rounds out the cast as the
house painter who helps Rebecca come to
terms with her widowhood. This movie is not
all dark, there are some truly fun moments,
but mostly it deals with acceptance, of death,
of friendship, and of love. And the true joy of
this movie is that some part of it will resonate
with you, no matter what your age or marital
status. Something about each one of these
women will strike a chord with you. Grab a
box of tissues, a close friend, and prepare to
enjoy every minute of this heart-warming,
heart-wrenching movie!
Moonlight and Valentino
1995
A familiar story of a woman coming to terms with
the death of her husband and of her relationship
with her supportive friends and family, Moonlight
and Valentino is a congenial female buddy movie
which is more heart than soul, more emotion than
intellect. Perkins plays a woman whose husband
is killed in a morning jog. As her sister (Paltrow),
best friend (Goldberg) and stepmother (Turner)
gather -- sometimes collectively and sometimes
singularly -- to give her comfort, she has a degree
of difficulty in trying to get on with her life. The
story takes place over a two-year period, and the
characters enter and exit in a sitcomish manner.
The widow Perkins rarely shows emotion -- to
either her husband's untimely death or her caring
though sometimes interfering mates -- which
immediately distances her character from the
viewer. But as written by Ellen Simon (Neil's
daughter), the film also exhibits a genuine bond
between the women, and they're given some
good dialogue to recite. Bon Jovi makes an
impressive debut as Perkins' hunky house
painter.
Moonlight and Valentino
Grief is a difficult subject for
a motion picture to address. Handled improperly, the emotion can be conveyed
as
shallow and insincere. A Hollywood
film's insatiable need to contain feel-good moments invariably diverts
scripts in this direction. Moonlight
and Valentino represents a constant struggle between presenting a heartfelt
examination of the effects of an
unexpected death and manipulating the audience.
The function of a solid performance
should be to elevate an intelligent script to the next level. In Moonlight
and
Valentino, however, the actors save
a rather ordinary screenplay from going down the drain. There's nothing
radically wrong with the material
-- it's just mundane and predictable. The movie doesn't contain any surprises,
and there are times when the legitimacy
of the characters' emotions are in question. Those wanting an
astonishingly genuine portrait of
grief should check out Krzysztof Kieslowski's vastly superior Blue (the
first film
in his Three Colors trilogy). As
good as Elizabeth Perkins is here, she can't hold a candle to Juliette
Binoche's
emotionally shattered Julie.
Perkins is Rebecca, a thirty-something
widow whose husband was killed while jogging. She's convincing in the
role, where she's constantly trying
to cope with repressed emotions. Her support system includes her sister
Lucy (Gwyneth Paltrow), her best
friend, Sylvie (Whoopi Goldberg), and her ex-stepmother, Alberta (Kathleen
Turner). None of these women are
the picture of psychological stability, however. Lucy, a chain-smoker whose
idea of breakfast is a cigarette
and a can of Pepsi, hasn't been able to get over her mother's death from
cancer
-- and that happened 14 years ago.
Sylvie is trapped in a dying marriage with a husband she keeps at arm's
length. And Alberta, a big time
Wall Street mover and shaker, has become so caught up in the world of high
finance that she's lost the ability
to relate on a human level.
Perkins isn't Moonlight and Valentino's
sole shining beacon of acting. Gwyneth Paltrow (Flesh and Bone,
Seven) gives a wonderful performance,
mixing a natural upbeat energy with expressive eyes. Paltrow is also
blessed with the rare ability to
deliver corny lines of dialogue in a completely natural fashion. Jon Bon
Jovi, in a
small role as a housepainter who
captures the eye of every woman in the film, also acquits himself admirably.
Whoopi Goldberg and Kathleen Turner,
however, are not as impressive, with Goldberg seeming especially flat.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect
of this film is the facile manner in which it resolves all the various
emotional tribulations. The ending
of Moonlight and Valentino is so silly and over-the-top that it's more
likely to
have the viewer shaking her or his
head than reaching for a Kleenex. Admittedly, there are moments likely
to
prompt a tear or two, but there's
also quite a bit that doesn't ring true. Many of the interpersonal conflicts
(such
as Lucy and Alberta's strained relationship)
feel like scripted contrivances; it's only when the story delves into
the characters' inner turmoil that
it strikes the right chord. Predictably, the result is a mixed bag -- a
study of grief
and friendship that might have been
more effective had the script been better-focused and the director's
approach less heavy-handed.
MOONLIGHT AND VALENTINO
A film that pulls at your heartstrings numerous times throughout its quirky,
touching and emotional story,
"Moonlight
& Valentino" portrays the close and sometimes bittersweet relationships
of four women. The
death of
the husband of a college poetry instructor (Elizabeth Perkins) brings her
together with her
younger
sister (Gwyneth Paltrow), ex-stepmother (Kathleen Turner) and best friend
and neighbor
(Whoopi
Goldberg). Singer Jon Bon Jovi has a small but significant role as a sexy
housepainter, and his
presence
relieves the intensity of their emotions for a short while and adds a little
"beefcake" to the story.
Unfortunately, the film bites off more than it can chew with its four leads,
all of whom are complex
women caught
up in their self-obsessions. Despite the volume of great talent, "Moonlight
& Valentino"
leaves
too many loose ends and unexplained scenarios with its characters, forcing
viewers to sort out
the remains
of their days for themselves.
MOONLIGHT AND VALENTINO
It's a rare movie that can live up
to its advance hype, and Moonlight And Valentino is certainly not that
movie.
The story, about a young
widow who learns to cope with her grief, is solid. The cast is terrific.
The
performances are often inspired
and the script leans nicely to irony.
Yes, it's all there.
And no, it doesn't add up.
Elizabeth Perkins plays Rebecca,
a young woman visited by tragedy. Her husband goes out jogging and
doesn't come home. The discovery
that he's been hit by a car and killed spins the story into motion.
How will she react? Survive?
Get over it?
Enter friendship, in the
person of Whoopi Goldberg, the wisecracking neighbor with marital problems.
Enter sisterly love (and
most of the laughs), via the talented Gwyneth Paltrow as a neurotic younger
sibling.
Enter maternal support and
nagging interference, courtesy of Kathleen Turner in the role of former
stepmother
and busybody corporate heavy.
The women laugh, cry, conspire,
dream, bitch, and offer each other advice and solace. And fight a lot.
Then, thanks to the sight
of a housepainter with a cute bum (Jon Bon Jovi) they really dig deep into
their
emotions and start that healing
process/girl bonding thing and the whole movie goes right off the rails.
Should we repeat that? A
housepainter with a cute bum?
Excuse me?
After all the great lines,
emotional moments, and true-to-life conversations between women, what happened
here?
Moonlight And Valentino began
as a stageplay, written by Ellen Simon and based on the tragedy of her
life.
The daughter of playwright Neil
Simon (that's not the tragedy, but you'd be forgiven for thinking so),
she was
widowed young when her husband was
hit by a car while out jogging.
The details of Moonlight
And Valentino are not the exact details of her own experience. We did note
in the
movie that the heroine's dead husband
was named Benjamin Lott, which of course makes the Elizabeth
Perkins character Lott's wife; perhaps
Simon's message is don't look back, or don't use too much salt, maybe.
Whatever.
We choose to believe that
all the great moments and heart-piercing snippets of conversation in the
movie are
from Simon's real life, and all
the nonsense (particularly the big catharsis scene, a load of narcissistic
hooey
about babies) is fabrication.
To put it another way, Moonlight
And Valentino starts off as being of, for and about women, and winds up
being about women as seen by men,
somehow. Don't you hate when that happens?
'Moonlight' weaves
together pain, humor, tight
jeans
September 30, 1995
HOLLYWOOD, California (CNN) -- Take
four women, add a little laughter, a few tears and a sexy
house painter, and you get "Moonlight
and Valentino." The new film stars Kathleen Turner,
Elizabeth Perkins, Whoopi Goldberg
and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Perkins plays Rebecca, a young woman
who suddenly becomes a widow when her husband is
killed in a car accident. Surrounded
by her friends and family, she is able to cope with the loss.
"It's really a story about relationships,
and family, and love, and support, and women," Turner
says.
Turner plays a controlling woman
who is desperate to win the love and approval of her two step-daughters,
Perkins and Paltrow. ³I got insecure
playing her; you know, it's like, 'Don't you like me?' I mean, poor Alberta.
She's running up the sidewalk after
Gwyneth Paltrow -- who's running away from her -- saying, 'Hug me, honey,
hug me!'"
Although she won't hug her stepmother,
Paltrow sees the soft side of her character. "She's a very sweet-natured
girl and, I think, what drew me
to her is the fact that she is trying to come to terms with who she is
and ... she
can't hide behind cigarettes and
insecurities for the rest of her life."
Whoopi Goldberg plays Perkins' best
friend, who encourages Rebecca to stop feeling sorry
for herself. Goldberg, as usual,
brings her wise wit to her role, but her character is not without
quirks. Caught up in a less-than-perfect
relationship herself, she breaks down in tears when
she thinks her lover has left her,
even though he just went to the gym.
The story of these women was first written as a play, inspired by the real-life
experiences of Ellen Simon, the daughter of Neil Simon. "When my husband
died and people
came around and I felt safe to mourn and really cry, I realized how healing
that is. So that was the
catharsis, and I wanted to write about that."
But Simon used some creative license, adding a heartthrob house painter
to the
plot. For that role, rock star Jon Bon Jovi fit the bill -- and the jeans.
"Those blue
jeans looked great, you know? I
mean the boy looks good," Turner blushingly admits. Perkins
agrees that the blond singer's presence
was a little distracting. "It was such a drag working with
Jon Bon Jovi, the rock star, every
day. It was so difficult just to walk out on the set," Perkins says.
Moonlight and Valentino
by Eleanor Ringel
Neil Simon got his nickname "Doc"
because he was so often asked to "doctor," i.e., fix up, other people's
scripts. So where was he when his
own daughter needed him? Ellen Simon's play-turned-movie is a dreary
"women's movie" about a newly-widowed
Elizabeth Perkins and her varied emotional support system: Gwyneth
Paltrow as her man-shy sister; Kathleen
Turner as her awesomely capable ex-stepmother; and Whoopi
Goldberg as her best pal, a potter
with three kids and a husband she hasn't slept with in three months. These
four are some of the most appealing
and talented women working in movies, but Simon's script is a botch of
half-clever quips and half-baked
touchy-feely insights. The only time the movie comes out of its torpor
is when
rock star Jon Bon Jovi shows up
as a hunky house painter. His many fans already know he's adorable-looking,
but the guy can act too. This movie
may end up remembered as the one that launched Bon Jovi's movie career.
MOONLIGHT & VALENTINO
(italiano)
Come forse saprete, la maggior parte
dei film che vediamo in qualit? di critici, vengono proiettati unicamente
per la stampa in delle piccole sale
di propriet? delle varie case di distribuzione. E' un modo privilegiato
di
vedere un film: spesso e volentieri
le sale sono molto comode e la qualit? delle pellicole e dei proiettori
?
sufficientemente alta. Per non parlare
della mancanza di interruzione tra un tempo e l'altro e la rara ma ghiotta
occasione di vedere alcuni film
in lingua originale. Certo, non ci sono n? popcorn n? cornetti, ma questo
forse
sarebbe chiedere troppo.
A volte, per misteriose ragioni
di mercato, alcuni film vengono fatti uscire direttamente nelle sale. Cos?,
ci
tocca andare al cinema. Ed ? in
queste occasioni che ho l'opportunit? di frequentare le sale di Roma. In
occasione dell'uscita di "Moonlight
& Valentino", sono finito all' Academy Hall. Era sabato, per entrare
ho
speso ben 12 mila lire (pi? le 3
mila per il cornetto) - dunque ben 15 mila lire per vedere questo film
deturpato
da un proiezione cos? buia da uccidere
tutti i colori, con un sonoro gracchiante e mono tono... Un disastro
insomma. E' veramente scandaloso
che a Roma, ex capitale del cinema europeo, una volta su due, le sale
siano scomode e i film vengano gambizzati
da proiettori scadenti.
Non posso dunque parlare dell'aspetto
puramente fotografico di "Moonlight & Valentino", che pure ? un buon
film, anzi oserei dire un film standard.
Nel jazz, gli standard sono quei brani diventati ormai dei classici che
vengono suonati in tutti i locali
del mondo. In questo senso la parola standard (comune) non ha dunque
un'accezione negativa.
La storia: Becky (Elizabeth Perkins) ? felicemente sposata. Vive insieme
a
suo marito in una bella casa nella campagna circostante a New York e lavora
come insegnante di letteratura alla Columbia University. La sua vita subisce
un cambiamento radicale quando, una mattina, suo marito muore investito
da
una macchina. Rimasta vedova alla giovane et? di trent'anni, Becky cerca
di
rifarsi una nuova vita. Intorno a lei altre tre donne che senza avere subito
traumi cos? eclatanti, stanno cercando di cambiare, di migliorare la propria
vita: la sua vicina e buona amica Sylvie (Whoopi Goldberg) con un
matrimonio che sta cadendo a pezzi, la giovane sorella Lucy (Gwineth
Paltrow) molto confusa e auto distruttiva e la matrigna (Kathleen Turner),
tipica donna-manager un po' fredda, ma con un grande cuore. Nell'arco di
un
anno, tra i vari conflitti e le crisi, tra i momenti di felicit? e di euforia,
la loro
vita scorre con il ritmo alternato e normale della realt?, e le quattro
donne
lentamente prendono coscienza di se stesse, liberandosi mano a mano di
tutti i pesi e i fardelli che indossavano.
E' un film che definisco standard,
perch? come tanti altri film non solo americani, ma sopratutto newyorkesi,
ha
una visione dell'esistenza univoca.
Nel vedere questo mondo, che ci viene descritto come reale, fatto di belle
case, di belle macchine, di ristoranti
all'europea, di universit? straordinarie, di persone 'sane' alle prese
con i
problemi della vita, dei loro discorsi
psicanalitici, con le loro paure e insicurezze psicologiche e fisiche,
pare di
assistere alla vita di una razza
aliena, lontana da noi. In realt? assistiamo ad un quadro fedele e chiaro
dell'uomo occidentale del duemila,
del costume dei nostri tempi, del pensiero. Possiamo individuare il
percorso che ci viene indicato dal
paese che volente o nolente guida gli 'standard' di pensiero del nostro
mondo. Non si tratta naturalmente
di dare un opinione in merito. Ognuno pensi quello che vuole, ma ? pur
vero
che per molti questo mondo racchiude
un fascino speciale. E infatti questo film, se anche descrive un mondo
distante dal nostro, che pu? apparire
quasi artefatto, riesce a commuovere, riesce a suscitare delle emozioni.
Perch? in fondo ? una metafora sull'attaccamento
al passato, sulla difficolt? di sganciarsi dai nostri pesanti
fardelli e vivere del e nel presente.
Le soluzioni adottate sono diverse dalle nostre pi? confuse, meno analitiche,
meno standardizzate, ma i problemi
sono gli stessi. Formalmente il film ? senza gloria n? infamia. La
sceneggiatura ? ben scritta con
dei dialoghi intelligenti, mai banali. Infine, a parte una Kathleen Turner
irriconoscibile e poco interessante
nella veste di attrice di mezz? et?, le altre attrici sono tutte brave
ed in
particolar modo Elizabeth Perkins
che porta avanti il suo personaggio con estrema bravura, rivelandosi
un'attrice di tutto rispetto.
A combination of coincidence and
trend has just brought us at least three new American movies either directed
by women and/or with a nearly all-female
cast: Diane Keaton's "Unstrung Heroes," David Anspaugh's
("Hoosiers") "Moonlight and Valentino,"
and, by Australian Jocelyn Moorhouse ("Proof"), "How to Make an
American Quilt."
In "Moonlight" a bunch of relatives
and/or friends are trying to support college poetry teacher Elizabeth Perkins
after her (also academic) husband
is killed in a yuppie accident :a car hits him as he jogs.
"Moonlight" is a would-be tearjerker.
The problem is that the tears are on the screen and not in the audience,
unless you count tears caused by
boredom.
The script, from a play by Neil Simon's
daughter, suffers from uninteresting everything : characters, acts, facts
and dialogue. A lot of useless yakety-yak
here makes the sluggish pace even slower. The talk is of time-killing
trivia. The death- in-the-family
treatment is far inferior to that in "Unstrung Heroes." The roles are dull
and
artificially constructed -- much
less attention-getting than those in "American Quilt."
The consolers are themselves in need
of drastic straightening out too. The ladies bond, de-bond, re-bond. A
hefty Whoopi Goldberg, a pottery
maker, is unstable, with pathological fears about her husband leaving her.
Gwyneth Paltrow, still mixed up
from the long-ago death of her mother, spots a kooky, perpetually hat-wearing
student of her sister Perkins. The
movie telegraphs with hammer-blows that a new twosome is in the making.
And as Paltrow has troubles with
her virginity, she first shows her body to Big Sis who decrees "You're
a
knockout. You should never wear
clothes." Then she asks Sis for advice on how to moan during sex. Perkins
obliges. ( I am not making any of
this up). And to think that they now blame the Internet.
Kathleen Turner --whose best role
by far was in "Serial Mom" -- is photographed in terribly unflattering
ways,
with the focus on her oddly soft
nose, while she has an un-dimensional, vague part as a self-centered,
hard-nosed business exec.
It takes 29 minutes into the film
(during which time you waste your energy deciphering matters) to establish
relationships or unscramble who's
who and what's what. Even then things are not always clear.
The neighborhood seems to be bucolic
suburbia --with too many pretty landscape shots -- of the "On Golden
Pond" school. For some reason, sentimental
family gatherings in movies are located in the East of the United
States, unlike the enormous majority
of other subjects that all take place in California. (Ph.D. thesis, anyone?)
Perkins teaches a three-minute class
(sic). She also injects Francois Truffaut in her lectures, for no discernible
reason. Distraught Perkins (the
very actress who was recently quoted as deriding Demi Moore's nudity in
movies) takes a bath. The mixing
of pathos and nipples is counterproductive, distracting indeed, as it is
known
from statistics that 94.67 percent
of men are voyeurs to some degree.
Turner turns out to be the former
stepmother of Perkins and Paltrow, whose father, at the funeral reception,
is
coyly told by his ex that she needs
a hug and kisses. He replies "Here's my kiss, and you fax me your hug."
That's the movie's best line.
Except for Paltrow's new boyfriend,
the main male presence is Bon Jovi's. He is a house painter, an Italian
who
speaks no English, and whose buns
inflame the women's libido. They discuss them openly, until the man turns
out to be a real Yankee. (Score
one for sitcom humor). His name is wrongly believed to be Valentino, hence
the
awkward title. The other part of
the title comes from Bon Jovi showing up at night to paint the Perkins
home.
Why night? He's a romantic, which
leads of course to intercourse that speeds up Perkins' healing process.
(He
also relaxes Perkins by teaching
her how to eat pizza with her fingers).How exciting. There is a mystery
however : is why change the house
color from a perfectly nice gray to the color of regurgitation?
The bottom line in this film is that
everyone, but everyone, is uninteresting. Not only is everyone unconvincing,
but everything stultifies us with
boredom, down to the heavy, lachrymose musical score.
Capping all this, the "good-bye to
Ben" (Perkins' defunct spouse) finale has all the women, with painted faces,
coming to terms with the past by
doing a kind of witchcrafty ritual at night, in the cemetery, with loud
music and
song plus up and down dancing. Then
a magic rain falls. Ugh!
`Moonlight' a Little Dim
Study of young widow's grief
Hardly a moment rings true in the fitful, tritely
amusing ``Moonlight and Valentino,'' starring
Elizabeth Perkins as a woman confronting
grief over the death of her husband, who was
hit by a car while jogging. The film is a
104-minute wait for her to stop stifling ``the
big cry'' that will let her get on with life.
It's too long a wait when the time is filled with
little but empty gestures, contrivance and
jokes that fizzle.
The film, opening today at the Cinema 21
and other Bay Area theaters, tries too hard to
put an amusing, cozy, girl-talk face on grief.
As Perkins' Rebecca Lott attempts to cope
with what she sees as the petrifying ``W
word'' (for widow), the film comes across as
agonizingly vapid.
``Moonlight and Valentino'' was written by
Ellen Simon, daughter of playwright Neil
Simon, and was produced as a play six
years ago at Duke University. Simon based
her piece on her experiences in losing her
own husband. But the film seems like an
elaborate avoidance of reality.
Still, the movie, for all its imploding moments
and artificial dialogue, is surprisingly
well-acted, its characters given a chance by
director David Anspaugh to be vital, almost
as if the actors went to extraordinary pains to
overcome the lame script.
Perkins, going beyond the pertness of her
roles in such films as ``Big'' and the
regrettable ``Miracle on 34th Street'' remake,
gives a maturity and depth to her portray al of
Rebecca, who suddenly doesn't want
physical contact of any kind from her best
friend, Sylvie (Whoopi Goldberg), as she
gets close to breaking down but keeps
pulling herself back together. That pulling
back together leads to a long journey into
self-absorption.
Like the other women in the film, Rebecca is
rich and accomplished. She is a professor of
poetry at a university, resides in a huge, tidy
house in some Westchester County-like
suburb, and lives as though her brow never
furrowed because of any bills that had to be
paid. Right there, the movie takes its first
annoying step toward pretension -- viewers
may find themselves asking why they should
care about a beautiful young woman who has
everything except a husband.
The big surprise in the film is Kathleen Turner
as Rebecca's overbearing ex-stepmother,
Alberta, who brings to the grief scene her
neurotic drive as a business tycoon and the
clatter of emotional luggage from being an
``ex'' who should no longer be a factor in
Rebecca's life.
The mannish Turner -- she's put on some
pounds and with short hair looks formidable
-- turns in the strongest performance. She's
tough, but every gesture reveals a crazy love
for Rebecca, her only connection with a
deeply repressed maternal instinct.
You want Goldberg, as Sylvie, to be a funnier
character in the film, but the script won't let
her. She's stuck in the part of a best friend
who is trying to reach out but is rebuffed by
Rebecca. Patience is tried as the wait for
Sylvie to kick Rebecca out of her
self-absorbed pity lengthens, but Goldberg
simply lacks the raw materials to push the
right buttons. All she can do is complain
about her own marriage.
Coming closer is Rebecca's weird younger
sister, Lucy (Gwyneth Paltrow of ``Shout'' and
``Seven''). But she's too neurotic to be
plausible. One scene in which she asks
Rebecca to look at her naked to assess
whether she could ever be desirable to men
is simply ludicrous.
Nothing much really happens in ``Moonlight
and Valentino.'' The film is about
relationships, and the most amusing one
finds pop singer Jon Bon Jovi, in his movie
debut, playing a house painter with the
women lusting after him.
It's clear that he and Perkins are fated to
have at least a one- nighter. But in a scene
where he tells her derisively that she eats
pizza like a mouse, any woman worth her salt
would have socked the guy in the eye rather
than dragged him off to bed.
Hardly a moment rings true in the fitful, tritely
amusing ``Moonlight and Valentino,'' starring
Elizabeth Perkins as a woman confronting grief
over the death of her husband, who was hit by a
car while jogging. The film is a 104-minute wait
for her to stop stifling ``the big cry'' that will let
her get on with life.
It's too long a wait when the time is filled with
little empty gestures, contrivance and jokes that
fizzle. ``Moonlight and Valentino'' was written by
Ellen Simon, daughter of playwright Neil Simon,
and was produced as a play six years ago at
Duke University. Simon based her piece on her
experiences in losing her own husband. But the
film seems like an elaborate avoidance of
reality.
Still, the movie, for all its imploding moments
and artificial dialogue, is surprisingly well-acted,
its characters given a chance by director David
Anspaugh to be vi tal, almost as if the actors
went to extraordinary pains to overcome the
lame script.
"MOONLIGHT and Valentino" is a movie about a
young woman grieving over her husband's
sudden death. By an amazing coincidence, it
induces in the viewer a series of emotions like
those experienced by people in mourning:
Denial: They can't seriously expect us to sit
through this buncombe.
Anger: How DARE they expect us to sit through
it?
Acceptance: There's an hour and a half left of
this movie, and it's not going to get any better.
The "Moonlight" hook is this - When will the
heroine, Rebecca (Elizabeth Perkins), a
professor of poetry, finally let her husband's
sudden demise get to her? And how will she
cope with the resulting emotional explosion?
Well, we soon find out that she'll do it, in part,
with a venerable show-biz device, whimsical
humor. She'll also need the help of a
sometimes lovable, sometimes annoying group
of sympathetic women: her sister (Gwyneth
Paltrow), a neurotic college student in constant
conflict with her and Rebecca's ex-stepmother
(Kathleen Turner), a hard-nosed Wall Street
executive; and her best buddy, a wisecracking,
Tarot-reading, unhappily married eccentric
(Whoopi Goldberg).
It's a setup for a real wallow, and that's what we
get. The script's a succession of tears and
brave fronts, hugs and fights and revelations,
reachings-out and rejections, joshing and
escapism, flirtation and affairs, beautiful sunny
days, nice houses and pretty flowers. Cuteness
and heartbreak is not a pleasing combination.
The lion's share of the blame falls to Ellen
Simon (daughter of Broadway stalwart Neil
Simon), who wrote the script from her own
1989 stage play. The story is loosely based on
her experiences following the death of her
husband, who was killed by a car in 1988 while
jogging in New York City. That fact lends the
film a poignancy that it is unable to achieve on
its own.
Director David Anspaugh (of the decent
"Hoosiers" and the not-so-hot "Rudy" ) is ever
ready to embrace Simon's sentimental tone;
there's no evidence it ever occurred to him to
try to balance it, let alone undermine it). He's a
filmmaker with a penchant for the saccharine
and the tasteful. He'd be a good choice for a
timid soap opera.
Perkins (of "Big" and "The Flintstones" ) does a
surprisingly decent job despite the material, and
Paltrow ( "Seven" ) is adequate as the tense
and troubled student. I'm not much of a
Kathleen Turner fan, so I'll just say she's a good
choice as the overbearing businesswoman.
And Goldberg, as she often does, adds some
badly needed life to the proceedings. Rock 'n'
roller Jon Bon Jovi pops up in a modest role as
a hunky housepainter.
"Moonlight" ? It's more like "moonshine."
Moonlight
and
Valentino
Talk, Talk, Talk | Sean Means
Ellen Simon wrote the play "Moonlight and
Valentino'' in 1989, to cope with the sudden
death of her husband. The movie derived
from that play is proof that there are things
you should tell your therapist that you
shouldn't tell a movie audience.
Simon's alter ego here is Rebecca
(Elizabeth Perkins), whose picture-perfect
marriage is destroyed when a car runs down
her husband. Her grieving, which fills the bulk
of the movie, involves much tea and
sympathy from her circle of friends: best pal
Sylvie (Whoopi Goldberg), neurotic
college-age sister Lucy (Gwyneth Paltrow)
and overbearing ex-stepmother Alberta
(Kathleen Turner, in a role modeled on
Simon's stepmom, Marsha Mason).
Rebecca's not the only one with problems,
though. Sylvie's marriage (to an unbilled
Peter Coyote) is in the toilet; Lucy fears
intimacy; and Alberta can't deal with her
stepdaughters' feelings toward their late
mother. Simon is the daughter of playwright
Neil Simon, but her writing style carries Nora
Ephron's DNA pattern. The biggest emotional
problems are soon reduced to one-liners,
and male-bashing banter fills the spaces in
between.
Perkins outshines her material, drawing
more emotional depth than she had to show
when playing Wilma Flintstone. Paltrow is
tenderly radiant, and Turner is humorously
abrasive. Rocker Jon Bon Jovi, in his movie
debut, gets to look studly -- which is all he is
required to do. Moonlight and Valentino is
a protracted group therapy session. Your
attendance is by no means mandatory.
Bad Alan Alda | Andy Spletzer
Whenever the words "Based on a play by..." pop onto the
screen, you should charge back to the box office and
demand a refund. Theater and film communicate in totally
different ways. Whereas theater can get away with
staging ideas as stories (such as date rape, dysfunctional
families, or sexism), good films rely on characters and
situations to support their ideological subtexts.
Moonlight and Valentino is the latest abomination to
prove the rule. Based on a play, it's about the bonds
women have when their male counterparts either leave or
die. Instead of fleshing out the characters and giving them
a "realistic" setting in which to develop, the screenplay
falls back on the theater's limited amount of possible sets
and forces characters to improbably come together and
talk about what's wrong with modern society. Good films
show development where bad theater talks about it.
Moonlight and Valentino is like a bad Alan Alda film
(before he started playing assholes). Though it's not as
bad as the worst movie ever made (that would be Grand
Canyon) it is enough to make you rethink the role of
theater as an inspiration for film.
To say that "Moonlight and Valentino" is a work of uncertain artistry
would be perfectly accurate; it's what I always say when words fail me.
They would fail you, too. Let me provide an example: The movie is a serious
comedy
about loss, mourning, friendship, sisterhood, recovery. Its protagonist
is a young
poetry professor (Elizabeth Perkins) who abruptly loses her husband when
he's hit
by a car while jogging.
While exploring the various stages of the woman's grief, director David
Anspaugh
and screenwriter Ellen Simon arrive at the moment when the wife must clean
out her
late husband's office. In this case, the wife blankly scans the room around
her, until
finally her eyes come to rest on a box of Chiclets.
"I didn't know he liked these," she says weakly, indicating that she'd
like to take them
home.
Later, while lounging in bed, she pops a Chiclet into her mouth; then,
after a
half-minute of meaningful chewing, she reaches inside her loosened robe
to caress
her breast.
See what I mean?
The "sisters"—actually, one sister (Gwyneth Paltrow), one stepmother (Kathleen
Turner) and a pottery-making best friend (Whoopi Goldberg)—whose support
is
celebrated, come rushing whenever there's trouble, as if the whole crew
were a
broken nail away from shoving their neurasthenic heads in the oven. (Sylvia
Plath
gets a nod.) Okay, I understand that there's a difference between losing
a husband
and losing a nail; I'm just not sure the filmmakers do.
"MOONLIGHT & Valentino," starring Elizabeth Perkins, Whoopi Goldberg,
Kathleen
Turner and Gwyneth Paltrow, celebrates group togetherness, dumb male studs
as
icons, and one-liners from the Erma Bombeck trove. Some will eat this stuff
up.
Others will run screaming into the night. But no matter how fast they take
off, they'll
never catch up with me.
Unfortunately for the film's potential fans, "Moonlight" skitters somewhere
between
mildly diverting and lukewarm. There are far more humorous seriocomedies
featuring female ensembles to be rented in the video stores, such as "Steel
Magnolias" and "Crimes of the Heart." "Moonlight," which Ellen Simon adapted
from
her stage play, is just a feel-good, comically mediocre also-ran. Characters
walk
around with uni-purpose adjectives floating over their heads, as their
problems unfold
with the connect-the-dots morality of an Ann Landers column:
* Perkins, a grieving college professor whose husband was killed by a car
while
jogging, needs to end her bereavement. Dear Grievin': Get a new lover.
* Goldberg, a ceramic artist and Perkins's eccentric best friend, is missing
that loving
togetherness she once had with husband Peter Coyote. Dear Missing: You
and
Coyote need to howl together.
* Paltrow, Perkins's neurotic kid-sister, mopes around in black clothes.
Dear Ms.
Sprockets: Spoil yourself with a guilt-free roll in the hay.
* Turner, Perkins and Paltrow's overbearing ex-stepmother, lives a life
of meetings,
mobile phones and limo rides. She's constantly trying to gain acceptance
from her
step-daughters, whose allegiance to their late, blood mother is considerable.
Dear
Ms. Executive: Accept the love between your step-daughters and their real
mother—and put that phone down.
An air of mischievous, stud-muffinfantasy is injected when too-cute-to-be-true
Jon
Bon Jovi happens to be painting the house next door to Perkins. Goldberg,
Paltrow
and Turner giddily decide that this man, who basks in the sunshine of permanent
good-hair days, will light up Perkins's gray future.
Mr. Bun Jovi, it turns out, liberates all of them. Suddenly, there are
more pairings-off
than a Moonie wedding, as our delicious house painter and Perkins, Coyote
and
Goldberg, Paltrow and a poetry student (Jeremy Sisto), and even Turner
and her
step-daughters, establish new, loving links.
"Moonlight" is the kind of movie in which everyone takes a turn being terminally
adorable. Goldberg, as usual, seems out to steal any scene she's in with
quasi-improvisational cuteness. When Paltrow becomes attracted to her poetry
man,
she asks Perkins to explain the whole sex-enjoyment thing. While Perkins
patiently
attempts to describe the physiological magic of good lovemaking, we're
supposed to
believe that Paltrow—an attractive, intelligent woman—has all the sexual
awareness
of an 11-year-old.
"I need your advice about moaning," Paltrow says later on Perkins's answering
machine.
As for Bon Jovi, Perkins catches him painting the outside of her house
one moonlit
night. In this movie, that makes him a Valentino. In my neighborhood, he'd
be
rightfully arrested.
MOONLIGHT & VALENTINO (R) — Contains sexual situations, bathtub nudity
and
people being overly adorable.