Category: Sam Waterston

THE MAN IN THE MOON (1991)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Robert Mulligan
CAST: Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, Reese Witherspoon, Jason London, Emily Warfield
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 91% Fresh

PLOT: A 14-year-old girl in 1957 comes of age when she develops a crush on a handsome neighbor…who only has eyes for her older sister.


The Man in the Moon has a plot that sounds like a high-concept pitch somewhere between an ABC After-School Special and a third-tier soap opera.  But somehow, magically, it transcends the trappings of soap opera and veers towards the truly operatic, touching on grand emotions while keeping itself grounded in reality.  I watched the movie in awe, wondering how something so sappy was holding my interest the whole way through.  Afterwards, I came up with two overarching reasons: the spectacular debut performance of a 14-year-old Reese Witherspoon, and the sure-footed direction from one of Hollywood’s old masters, Robert Mulligan, who cut his teeth on stage plays for television in the 1950s before directing his masterpiece in 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Like Mockingbird, The Man in the Moon takes place in the deep South.  The time is 1957, when Elvis was king and children were still encouraged to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” to their parents.  Dani Trant (Witherspoon) is still young and tomboyish enough to escape her Sunday chores by dashing off to the local swimming hole after church.  Her older sister, Maureen (Emily Warfield), is set to start college at Duke in a few months.  Their close relationship is established in a sweet opening scene where they sit in their outdoor, screened-in bedroom, doing each other’s hair and talking about life and Maureen’s doubts and how Dani envies Maureen, and so on.  Like in real life, the conversation touches on deep topics, but never really resolves anything.  It just feels good to talk, to know the other person is really listening.  This scene is mirrored in the movie’s final scene in a fantastic bit of screenwriting where the conversation is very different, but the emotions being discussed are more or less the same.

One day, Dani goes skinny dipping in the watering hole and finds an unexpected visitor: Cort Foster (Jason London), 17, whose mother and younger brothers have just moved back to their old farm next door.  Turns out Cort’s mother, Marie, is an old friend of Dani’s mom, Abigail.  This is the kind of stuff soap operas thrive on, but even at that point, even though I was aware of the contrivances of the story, I never felt overly manipulated.  It all just felt very…real.  Once again, it’s a testament to the director’s skill in making sure nothing gets punched up unless there’s a reason for it.  It’s never bland, don’t get me wrong.  But it never feels fake.  I don’t like the word “organic” in connection with acting or directing, but that feels like the right word to use here.

Things move swiftly.  Dani and Cort become quick friends, but when things get a little too flirtatious at the swimming hole, Cort backs away and admonishes Dani.  “You almost got more than kissed, little girl.”  Dani asks Maureen for tips on kissing boys.  It looks as if Cort is always on the verge of making a bad decision, but he has the good sense to put on the brakes.  The film is making you think the movie is going to be about one thing, but then there’s a family crisis, and in the hubbub, Cort meets Maureen, there’s an instant attraction, Dani feels left out…

But that’s enough summarizing.  Based on what I’ve written, you may already think you know the arc of the film, but I can assure you, you’re wrong.

Let’s talk instead about Reese Witherspoon’s performance.  It must be seen to be believed.  It belongs in the pantheon of the greatest debut performances of all time.  She is as self-assured and confident and natural as she was in her Oscar-winning performance in Walk the Line.  It’s almost like watching some of the early films of Marilyn Monroe; the screen just seems a little brighter when she’s present.  Watch her facial expressions when Cort realizes who she is after their first encounter at the swimming hole.  Watch her smile after her first kiss.  Look at her self-control when she tells her father she understands why he had to take the strap to her (that’s a long story that I won’t spoil).  For the most part, I just watched her performance in awe, but once or twice I turned on my analytical mode and tried to see if I could “catch” her acting.  Couldn’t do it.  The fact she wasn’t at least nominated for an Oscar for this movie is a complete freaking mystery to me.

For that matter, the whole movie is a mystery to me.  Before watching it, I had only heard about it from a rave review by Roger Ebert.  I couldn’t find it streaming anywhere so I had to pay a relatively pretty penny to get it on Blu ray, sight unseen.  (Spoiler alert: it was worth it.)  Yet here is a brilliant gem of a film that tells a simple story of love and sadness and doubt and everything in between.  There are some plot surprises – I won’t say twists, exactly, it’s not a Shyamalan movie – that I absolutely did not see coming.  In retrospect, maybe I should have, but the storytelling kept me engrossed in the moment.  It kept me focused on the here and now, so I never felt the need to try and guess what was around the corner.  I hesitate to use this word, too, but it was mesmerizing.  To tell a story this cornball (on the surface!) and keep it fresh and alive is some kind of miracle.

It’s been said that no good movie is too long.  The Man in the Moon clocks in at just under 100 minutes with credits, but I was prepared to stick with it for at least another half hour, just to see what these characters would do and say, and how they would deal with the next challenges life throws at them.  When the movie ends, it doesn’t feel like an ending.  It has the good sense not to make things too final, as if the solutions to all the issues in the film could be wrapped up in a bow.  All that remains is the bond between two sisters, and if they have that, that’s all that matters.

MISS SLOANE

By Marc S. Sanders

Jessica Chastain is an aggressive actress. The talent is on par with Meryl Streep or Katherine Hepburn for sure, and the Oscar trophy she won earlier this year is evident of that. Actually, she’s worthy of more than just one. My question, though, is if she is too aggressive. Films like Zero Dark Thirty, Molly’s Game, and Miss Sloane, put her in characters that never stop to react and smell the roses. That wears me out. Could you just slow down Jessica, so I can take this all in, please? You’re talking faster than I can think.

In Miss Sloane, Chastain portrays an impenetrable lobbyist. Nothing gets past this woman and despite her shortcomings, nothing will harm her either. Elizabeth Sloane will always be one step ahead of the game. This is a fierce chess player in the political arena. She’s omnipotent and admits to hardly ever sleeping. Maybe the pill popping helps with that. Like the Faye Dunaway character from Network, she also has no time for personal relationships or sensitive sex. So, she’s a high paying client for a male escort who will wait for her to come home to satisfy her fix.

Elizabeth is first employed with a wealthy private law firm who wants her to head up a bill in favor of the gun lobby. She declines, walks out the door with one long speech, a way over the top laugh (this is where there’s too much Jessica in my morning coffee) and over half her staff. She goes to the other side of the aisle to lobby aggressively against the gun bill.

From there it’s one aggressive maneuver after another and Elizabeth more than proves that she’s got the balls for this game. Only thing is, as Elizabeth proceeds to countermeasure and attack from her side, is she losing sight of the subject at play? Will her soul swim to the surface showing any sense of morality?

The film begins where Elizabeth is being questioned at a hearing headed by a state Senator (John Lithgow, always a pleasure to see). Then it moves on to show us how Elizabeth finds herself at that hearing.

Miss Sloane has no limits to what she’ll do to protect the integrity of a client’s argument for the bill even if it means embarrassing a traitorous teammate, putting another teammate in an unwelcome limelight of political journalism or maybe even employing a cockroach of the sort to use as a listening device. Miss Sloane won’t hesitate to take risks for the lobby she’s been hired to pursue, even if it risks someone’s life or their reputation.

A twist presents itself at the end and yeah, it could work assuming you believe Elizabeth Sloane, the brilliant lobbyist, can telegraph about fifty different actions that could take place amounting to that one moment. The math adds up, but were the numbers fudged to allow the arithmetic to work? That’s why a film like Miss Sloane is hard for me to swallow.

Does this woman have ESP? The final card she plays would require not only her own personal endurance, but that of a colleague as well. A lot of factors all have to be in sync to make this story work out the way it does. So my suspension of disbelief was really tested with this film.

I go back to Jessica Chastain. Zero Dark Thirty remains my favorite of hers. She was a great underdog against a male oriented governing body in the pursuit of Bin Laden. After that, Miss Sloane released a few years later and Chastain got bit by the Aaron Sorkin bug, I think. Endless talking works as an intellect that’s hard to challenge. Problem is, I’m the viewer and I’m wondering for the first thirty minutes what in the hell you’re talking about. Miss Sloane isn’t an Aaron Sorkin film, but Jessica Chastain will have you convinced she wants it to be.

Fortunately, writer Jonathan Perera with director John Madden ease up on the brakes allowing much more realistic and human characters to invade the film including Lithgow, Alison Pill and an especially riveting performance from Gugu Mbatha-Raw (recently seen by me with a subpar script called The Whole Truth) who becomes Elizabeth’s trusted sidekick both behind and in front of the cameras for political jockeying. This is an actress ready for some lead roles.

I described Miss Sloane as omnipotent earlier and that’s a problem for the first act of the film. This character never shuts up early on. There’s next to no impact on anyone around her. She just talks and talks and talks and she convinces me that she’s the smartest one in the room, but she also makes me want to turn the movie off. The film saves itself with the able supporting cast eventually.

To watch Miss Sloane is not to take any position on gun lobbying especially seriously. I’m not sure the filmmakers have a stance to play. I’m not sure the filmmakers know whether to even regard the titled character as a hero or villain. Actually, I just think the purpose of the film is to show corner cutting and how aggressive a made-up lobbyist can actually be, devoid of any determining factors. We are privileged to see how far a woman with stiletto heels, a cinched up red head ponytail and a tight business suit will go to win at any cost. It’s intriguing, but I guess I just felt unfulfilled by the end. It was all there. It just seemed to work itself all out too conveniently by the end.