Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageA Walk on the Moon (1998)
Director: Tony Goldwyn
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
It's 1969. As moon-walking Apollo astronauts take giant steps for mankind, hippies invade Woodstock and students protest against the Vietnam War, Jewish housewife Pearl Kantrowitz (Lane) enjoys her own summer of love at a traditional Catskills holiday resort. While her TV repairman husband Marty (Schreiber) slaves away back in town, and her teenage daughter Alison (Paquin) flirts with adulthood, Pearl wears tie-dye, goes skinny dipping and gets it on with Walker Jerome (Mortensen), a handsome hippie who finances his freewheeling lifestyle by selling blouses. As the frustrated wife, Lane is both sensual and sympathetic, although the scrupulously fair screenplay is clear about the costs of her liberation. Schreiber conveys a stolid dignity as the hardworking husband whose limited worldview is shattered by his wife's infidelity. A modest, lovingly crafted melodrama, but regrettably, this first feature from actor-turned-director Goldwyn (who played Patrick Swayze's duplicitous colleague in Ghost) never integrates its parochial setting and intimate emotional conflicts with the broader social canvas, which in the event feels more like a historical backdrop than a dramatic context.Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: Tony Goldwyn
Producer: Dustin Hoffman, Tony Goldwyn, Jay Cohen, Neil Koenigsberg, Lee Gottsegen, Murray Schisgal
Cast: Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, Liev Schreiber, Anna Paquin, Tovah Feldshuh, Bobby Boriello, Stewart Bick, Jess Platt full cast
Duration: 107 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now