Ride Down This Moonlight Mile

A film review of Moonlight Mile, originally printed in Brown University/RISD College Hill Independent


ANY FILM THAT ENDS with Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing" playing over images of a kiss and a sunset has me hook, line and sinker. Brad Silberling's film Moonlight Mile is not a perfect work of art, but its more noteworthy moments are quite touching and make the film worth seeing.
The time is the mid-seventies and the place is the fictional town of Cape Anne, Massachusetts. Diana Floss, would-be fiancé of protagonist Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), has been shot to death in a restaurant by an insane person. In preparation for the funeral, Joe has moved in with Diana's parents, Ben and Jo-Jo Floss (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon). He decides to remain in town because he feels an obligation to help Ben and Jo-Jo heal the wounds created by their loss. They welcome Joe as the son-in-law they almost had. Ben makes Joe his partner in the Floss real estate business, even though Joe has no interest in real estate. Meanwhile, Joe finds himself falling in love with Bertie, a postal worker/bar maid who is mourning the disappearance of her boyfriend in Vietnam. Holly Hunter pops up sporadically through the film, playing Mona Camp, the attorney who is bringing Diana's killer to trial.

Brad Silberling, Moonlight Mile's writer and director, has suffered a tragedy quite similar to that depicted in his film. In 1989, his girlfriend, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, was murdered by a stalker. Silberling's close connection to the material certainly gives the film a feeling of authenticity. Yet one wishes the filmmaker had chosen to tell a more biting, less sappy story. Moonlight Mile is a sentimental version of classic family dramas such as the single-parent story Kramer Vs. Kramer and the death-in-the-family saga Ordinary People. Silberling tentatively explores inter-personal dynamics within a grieving family, but shies away from a complete interpretation of the psychosis behind his characters' actions in favor of a glossy, less realistic romance and a slightly absurd trial against the man who killed Diana.

Family matters

The film is most engaging as an examination of how Ben and Jo-Jo cling to Joe. Ben treats Joe as not only a male friend-a buddy he can share a cigar and a beer with-but as a surrogate father figure. In a superbly framed scene featuring Ben and Joe on a bench perched on a high rocky cliff, Silberling and his cinematographer, Phedon Papamichael, photograph the actors in such a way that Hoffman's legs dangle off the bench, a good foot above the ground. He swings his legs like a kid and coughs on his cigar, admitting, "I've never smoked one of these before." Meanwhile, Joe is cool, reserved, and comforting. Joe also assumes control of their business, taking it upon himself to complete their planned real estate deal-an effort to completely change the layout of the town's main street-by going to the ratty-looking bar on the corner and bargaining with the bar's owners to sell out. Furthermore, it is Joe who dines at the home of real estate king Mike Mulcahey (Dabney Coleman) to discuss business negotiations. The future of Floss Real Estate is clearly in Joe's hands. The sign outside the office reads "Floss and Son," but who is really the son in this relationship?

Though free from parental symbolism, Jo-Jo and Joe's relationship is weighted with sexual tension. Jo-Jo, a sharp, caustic writer, is a bit of a rebel-she's a former alcoholic and smoker. Though happily married to Ben, there is undoubtedly something in Jo-Jo that is attracted to Joe, who emanates innocent freedom and youthful exuberance. Though a union between the two is impossible, Silberling strongly hints at Jo-Jo's jealousy of Joe and Bertie's relationship. When Joe returns one morning from a night spent with his new lover, Jo-Jo is waiting for him on his bed, a drink in her hand, wanting to know where he's been. Jo-Jo even says, "If I could make you celibate for the rest of your life, I would." The tone of the conversations between Joe and Jo-Jo, the looks exchanged between Gylenhaal and Sarandon, create an intimacy and rapport that sexualizes the relationship between a mother and her would-be son-in-law in a provocative way.


Unexamined lives

Moonlight Mile is fundamentally a film about self-deception. For most of the film, Joe attempts to hide a major lie from his would-be in-laws. He convinces himself that he owes it to the Flosses to fill the void created by the loss of their daughter. Though he doesn't much like real estate, he'll be a part of the family business if that will make Ben happy. If Ben and Jo-Jo want him to act as a surrogate child-living in their house and sleeping in Diana's room-Joe is willing to oblige. Joe resists his initial urge to spend time with Bertie, for he feels an obligation to stay true to Diana. Yet the film wants him to move on with his life and to not allow Diana's death to cripple his ability to mature as a person.

Bertie deceives herself into a similar form of chastity. She has not allowed herself to kiss another man since her boyfriend Cal went to Vietnam three years ago. He's missing-in-action and unlikely to return. Unfortunately, Bertie still works in the bar Cal owned and still cries herself to sleep at night thinking about him. Like Joe, Bertie must learn to carry on with her life, allow herself to love again, and venture out into the world in search of new experiences.

Ben, meanwhile, thinks that life can return to exactly how it was before Diana's death. He thinks that he and Joe can function as business partners (even though Joe has no interest in real estate). He thinks that jumping right into work after his daughter's death is the best medicine for his pain (even tough he admits he feels great guilt because he never felt that he had a true, heartfelt connection to his daughter-he was always too busy with work). Until Ben realizes that his supposed motivations are not satisfying his needs, he will be trapped in self-deception.

In fact, this movie bears a strong resemblance to The Graduate, the 1967 film, which also starred Dustin Hoffman as a character named Ben, and dripped with a baby-boomer generation's sense of alienation from their parents. Besides the obvious initial connection that both star Hoffman as Ben, the films feature a protagonist who escapes from a needy culture that wants to suck him in and make him one of their own. But just as Benjamin had no interest in plastics, Joe is adverse to a career in real estate: Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) and the real estate agent Mike Mulcahey are both are older men who lead stiff, boring lives that make the protagonist cringe. Joe Nast and Benjamin Braddock are content only when they're on the road, leaving behind the small suburban towns where their elders reside, and venturing out into the world. The unexplored world is a place where the protagonist will find both true love and a sense of his own self-identity. While The Graduate ended with the wondering, wandering tunes of Simon and Garfunkel, Moonlight Mile closes with Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing"-a song that is an emblem of the "right" and "true" path that only an idealist would believe in. Like Joe Nast and Benjamin Braddock, each of us cannot help but search for that path ourselves.