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Review by Susan Granger
3 stars out of 4
Two narrative threads are woven here: 1) dealing with grief and 2)
living a lie. The story, set in 1973, opens with a funeral in a small
Massachusetts town. JoJo and Ben Floss (Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman) are
mourning their murdered daughter whose fiancé Joe (Jake Gyllenhaal) wanders
aimlessly. JoJo reacts angrily to condolences ("Why don't they think before they
spew?"), while Ben buries his pain in his work. Dazed and confused, Joe has
moved in with his would-be in-laws and agreed to join Ben in commercial real
estate. Briefed by their attorney (Holly Hunter), they're are awaiting the
gunman's upcoming trial. But there are pesky details to deal with. Like the
wedding invitations which Joe must retrieve from the local post-office. That's
where he meets quirky, wise-cracking Bertie (scene-stealing Ellen Pompeo), who
runs a neighborhood bar owned by her fiancé who's been M.I.A. for three years in
Vietnam. You can guess what happens when these two lost souls meet, but Joe is
also grappling with a dilemma. The Flosses don't know that he'd actually broken
his engagement to their daughter just days before she was shot and that he's
staying with them partly through a feeling of guilty obligation. When that
secret is eventually revealed, there are aching, affecting, illusion-shattering
moments for Sarandon, Hoffman and Gyllenhaal. Writer-director Brad Silberling
was inspired by his own experiences following the 1989 murder of his fiancée, TV
actress Rebecca Schaeffer, so the grief rings true, although a subplot involving
a proposed mall seems perfunctory. Songs like the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight
Mile" imbue the soundtrack with nostalgia. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to
10, "Moonlight Mile" is a bittersweet 7, a meditation on love, loss, grieving
and moving on.
Copyright © 2002 Susan Granger
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