a walk on the moon movie review

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"Sometimes I just wish I was a whole other person,'' says Pearl Kantrowitz, who is the subject, if not precisely the heroine, of "A Walk on the Moon.'' It is the summer of 1969, and Pearl and her husband, Marty, have taken a bungalow in a Catskills resort. Pearl spends the week with their teenage daughter, their younger son and her mother-in-law. Marty drives up from the city on the weekends.

The summer of 1969 is, of course, the summer of Woodstock, which is being held nearby. And Pearl ( Diane Lane ), who was married at a very early age to the only man she ever slept with, feels trapped in the stodgy domesticity of the resort--where wives and families are aired and sunned, while the man labors in town. She doesn't know it, but she's ripe for the Blouse Man ( Viggo Mortensen ).

The Blouse Man drives a truck from resort to resort. The side of the truck opens out into a retail store, with marked-down prices on blouses and accessories. Funny, but he doesn't look like a Blouse Man: With his long hair and chiseled features, he looks more like a cross between a hippie and the hero on the cover of a paperback romance. He senses quickly that Pearl is shopping for more than blouses, and offers her a free tie-dyed T-shirt, and his phone number. The T-shirt is crucial, symbolizing a time when women of Pearl's age were in the throes of the Sexual Revolution. Soon Pearl is using the phone number. "I wonder,'' she asks the Blouse Man, "if you had plans for watching the Moon Walk?'' "A Walk on the Moon'' is one small step for the Blouse Man, a giant leap for Pearl Kantrowitz. In the arms of the Blouse Man, she experiences sexual passion and a taste of freedom, and soon they're skinny-dipping just like the hippies at Woodstock. The festival indeed exudes a siren call, and Pearl, like a teenage girl slipping out of the house for a concert, finally sneaks off to attend it with the Blouse Man. Marty ( Liev Schreiber ), meanwhile, is stuck in the Woodstock traffic jam. And their daughter Alison ( Anna Paquin ), who has gotten her period and her first boyfriend more or less simultaneously, is at Woodstock, too--where she sees her mother.

The movie is a memory of a time and place now largely gone (these days Pearl and Marty would be more likely to take the family to Disney World, or Hawaii). It evokes the heady feelings of 1969, when rock was mistaken for revolution. To be near Woodstock and in heat with a long-haired god, but not be able to go there, is a Dantean punishment. But the movie also has thoughts about the nature of freedom and responsibility. "Do you think you're the only one whose dreams didn't come true?'' asks Marty, whose early marriage meant he became a TV repairman instead of a college graduate.

Watching the gathering clouds over the marriage, Pearl's mother-in-law, Lilian ( Tovah Feldshuh ), sees all and understands much. If Pearl is not an entirely sympathetic character, Lilian Kantrowitz is a saint. She calls her son to warn him of trouble, she watches silently as Pearl defiantly leaves the house, and perhaps she understands Pearl's fear of being trapped in a life lived as an accessory to a man.

So the underlying strength of the story is there. Unfortunately, the casting and some of the romantic scenes sabotage it. Liev Schreiber is a good actor, and I have admired him in many movies, but put him beside Viggo Mortensen and the Blouse Man wins; you can hardly blame Pearl for surrendering. (I am reminded of a TV news interview about that movie where Demi Moore was offered $1 million to sleep with Robert Redford . "Would you sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars?'' a woman in a mall was asked. She replied: "I'd sleep with him for 50 cents.'') The movie's problem is that it loads the casting in a way that tilts the movie in the direction of a Harlequin romance. Mortensen looks like one of those long-haired, bare-chested, muscular buccaneers on the covers of the paperbacks; all he needs is a gothic tower behind him, with one light in a window. The movie exhibits almost unseemly haste in speeding Pearl and the Blouse Man toward lovemaking, and then lingers over their sex scenes as if they were an end in themselves, and not a transgression in a larger story. As Pearl and the Blouse Man cavort naked under a waterfall, the movie forgets its ethical questions and becomes soft-core lust.

Then, alas, there is the reckoning. We know sooner or later there will be anger and recrimination, self-revelation and confession, acceptance and resolve, wasp attacks and rescues. We've enjoyed those sex scenes, and now, like Pearl, we have to pay. Somewhere in the midst of the dramaturgy is a fine performance by Anna Paquin (from "The Piano'') as a teenage girl struggling with new ideas and raging hormones. Every time I saw her character onscreen, I thought: There's the real story.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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A Walk on the Moon (1999)

Rated R For Sexuality, Language and Some Drug Use

106 minutes

Diane Lane as Pearl Kantrowitz

Viggo Mortensen as Walker Jerome

Liev Schreiber as Marty Kantrowitz

Anna Paquin as Alison Kantrowitz

Tovah Feldshuh as Lilian Kantrowitz

Bobby Boriello as Daniel Kantrowitz

Stewart Bick as Neil Leiberman

Star Jasper as Rhoda Leiberman

• Pamela Gray

Directed by

• Tony Goldwyn

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A Walk on the Moon Reviews

There's a good, solid story here, even if it isn't quite told in the proper order. And the actors do a lot with their roles.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 13, 2023

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 7, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Mortensen as Lane's clandestine love interest is nothing but a symbol of beauty and freedom.

Full Review | May 26, 2006

Romance novel material, albeit it gussied up in a handsome, well-made package.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 20, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 4, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 4, 2004

Beautiful performances!

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 22, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 30, 2004

How many films are about a woman's sexual awakening? A film that puts a woman's desire before family without offering a moral judgment or offering a male fantasy?

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 24, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 0/5 | Aug 22, 2003

would make a fine companion piece to Ang Lee's 'The Ice Storm,' another tale of unhappy people trying to find themselves -- or lose themselves -- in other people's beds.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 15, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 18, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 11, 2002

Actor Tony Goldwyn makes a striking directorial debut with the deeply nostalgic, truly heartwarming A Walk on the Moon.

Full Review | Jun 18, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 19, 2002

A beautifully acted drama about infidelity in the summer of 1969 when astronauts landed on the moon and the counterculture celebrated sexual liberation at Woodstock.

Full Review | Mar 4, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 1, 2001

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jan 1, 2000

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 1, 2000

March 26, 1999 FILM REVIEW 'A Walk on the Moon': A Giant Leap for a New York Housewife Related Articles The New York Times on the Web: Current Film Video Selected Scenes and Trailer From the Film Forum Join a Discussion on Current Film By JANET MASLIN " Walk on the Moon" is as seductive as the handsome, itinerant hippie who turns its heroine's life upside down. In this nostalgic, beautifully acted tale of romance and responsibility, that heroine is a housewife who could not be at a more dangerous time and place for maintaining the status quo. As she has every summer, Pearl Kantrowitz (Diane Lane) totes her ironing board, dish drainer, children and mother-in-law to a Jewish holiday camp in the Catskills to vacation all summer while her husband Marty (Liev Schreiber) stays in New York City repairing television sets. It's a peaceful but dull existence, and that's the way it is supposed to stay. Knowingly directed by the actor Tony Goldwyn, "A Walk on the Moon" is about something different in the air. The year is 1969, the event of the title is about to happen and the camp is near the site where Woodstock will soon explode. That might seem like a much too convenient coincidence if the screenwriter, Pamela Gray, had not been there to see the local kosher butcher shop rename itself the Funky Chicken in honor of hippies in the neighborhood and seismic currents too powerful to ignore. In any case, the film lets this situation yield a steamy, enveloping romance, a family crisis and the fallout that crisis has to bring. ADVERTISEMENT Originally called "The Blouse Man" in honor of its traffic-stopping title character, "A Walk on the Moon" has its elements of attractive fantasy. The blouse man is one of the peddlers who visit the camp to sell their wares, and it took Ms. Gray many rewrites to turn him into an object of desire. However, as played with silky eroticism by Viggo Mortensen, the gentlemanly Walker Jerome arrives to charm the camp's old ladies and weaken Pearl's knees. It took just as many rewrites to make the straight-arrow Marty equally appealing in his own way, but the film succeeds in doing that too. Ms. Lane movingly captures the dilemma of a woman married at 17 and yearning for freedom just as her own daughter (Anna Pacquin, utterly persuasive as a turbulent American adolescent) feels very much the same. And in a film that, as Goldwyn said when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, means to mirror changes that shook the nation during that era, "A Walk on the Moon" lets Pearl follow through on her yearnings. On the night of the moonwalk, Pearl embarks on her own dangerous adventure into terra incognita, which the film renders with a tenderness virtually unknown on screen these days. The mood is set by a soundtrack of sweet, liberating music, mostly album tracks or cover versions rather than familiar hits, from the artists (Joni Mitchell, the Jefferson Airplane, Jesse Colin Young, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan) whose voices defined the times. With a little too much meddlesome wisdom from Grandma (Tovah Feldshuh), the film leaves Pearl with a sexual Sophie's Choice and at last gives Schreiber's character his due. In a film with Dustin Hoffman as one of its producers, Schreiber makes Marty the kind of touching, insistent presence that Hoffman has himself often played, and does full justice to the "What next?" questions raised by the Blouse Man's magnetic pull. The film's final image is among those that could be dismissed as preposterous for anyone so inclined. Sternly analytical viewers need not apply. However, "A Walk on the Moon," with its evocative Catskills aura and warmly attractive look (with cinematography by Anthony Richmond), is more likely to quell such objects than to raise them. Even when it turns turbulent, the film sustains its warm summer glow, and makes itself a conversation piece about the moral issues it means to raise. PRODUCTION NOTES 'A WALK ON THE MOON' Directed by Tony Goldwyn; written by Pamela Gray; director of photography, Anthony Richmond; edited by Dana Congdon; music by Mason Daring; production designer, Dan Leigh; produced by Dustin Hoffman, Goldwyn, Jay Cohen, Neil Koenigsberg, Lee Gottsegen and Murray Schisgal; released by Miramax Films. WITH: Diane Lane (Pearl Kantrowitz), Viggo Mortensen (Walker Jerome), Liev Schreiber (Marty Kantrowitz), Anna Paquin (Alison Kantrowitz) and Tovah Feldshuh (Lilian Kantrowitz). Running time: 107 minutes. "A Walk on the Moon" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes nudity and intensely sexual situations.

A Walk on the Moon

The summer of '69 is loaded with Cultural Significance, what with man's first walk on the moon and half a million descending on Woodstock. "A Walk on the Moon," set at a middle-class Catskills resort that historic July and August, is just plain loaded -- as in heavy-handed and contrived. Frosh effort by Dustin Hoffman's Punch Productions wants to be both women's pic and coming-of-age piece, but isn't successful at either.

By Glenn Lovell

Glenn Lovell

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The summer of ’69 is loaded with Cultural Significance, what with man’s first walk on the moon and half a million descending on Woodstock. “A Walk on the Moon,” set at a middle-class Catskills resort that historic July and August, is just plain loaded — as in heavy-handed and contrived. Frosh effort by Dustin Hoffman’s Punch Productions wants to be both women’s pic and coming-of-age piece, but isn’t successful at either. Crix are certain to recall “Dirty Dancing” and “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” but not favorably.

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Diane Lane, in her most mature role to date, plays Pearl Kantrowitz, a vaguely dissatisfied mother of two who chooses a summer getaway to sow long-dormant oats and take up with a traveling garment salesman (or “blouse man”) named Walker (Viggo Mortensen). Though seemingly happily married to Marty (Liev Schreiber), a TV repairman, Pearl feels “trapped by life” and secretly resents missing the do-your-own-thing ’60s. When hubby’s job calls him back to the city, Pearl buys a tie-dyed T-shirt, meets up with the blouse man and partakes of free love and nude swimming at the Woodstock bacchanal.

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Teen daughter Alison (Anna Paquin) is ripe for her own sexual awakening. When, among the sea of faces at Woodstock, she spies Mommy acting very, well, un-Mommy-like, Alison becomes understandably miffed. This was supposed to be her summer, not Mom’s. Poor square Dad, meanwhile, has no idea what’s going on, until his tarot-reading mother ( Tovah Feldshuh ), also vacationing with the family, tells Sonny what’s what.

The expected campground scene, a semi-scary accident involving Alison’s brother (Bobby Boriello) and a wasps’ nest, and a questionable reconciliation ensue. Actor-turned-helmer Tony Goldwyn and writer Pamela Gray would have us believe that Pearl, after one interrupted affair, has gotten it out of her system and now everyone can move on. Equally absurd is the mother-daughter bonding. Pearl counsels Alison to wait for Mr. Right, and Alison buys the advice without screaming, “You hypocrite!”

Problems abound as pic deals with the impact of adultery on a picture-perfect family. Given how nice and well adjusted everyone is, Pearl’s behavior takes its toll on audience empathy. Men, feeling Marty’s pain, will most likely squirm in their seats during the extramarital sex and, from this point on, tune Pearl out. Women, on the other hand, will likely understand what motivates Pearl to sneak out at night and put everything at risk. A David Lean (in similarly themed “Brief Encounter”) could appeal to all audience members by creating a well-rounded heroine, who, despite her lapses, remains sympathetic. Goldwyn, less adept at this kind of thing, sets Lane on a slippery slope from which she never recovers.

As the object of Pearl’s lust, Mortensen doesn’t help matters. Supposed free spirit seems cold and uptight and, worse, goes parking in his showroom bus! Schreiber, who has co-producer Hoffman’s nasal delivery down, is a lot more likable, and vet Feldshuh proves pic’s strongest asset. Oscar-winner Paquin’s character is the victim of parallel storylines: Just when we think we’re getting to know this junior radical, focus changes. Julie Kavner (uncredited) supplies the voice of camp’s social director.

Despite strategic references to Joan Baez and pot, pic’s sense of time and place feels synthetic. Vaguely ’60s costumes and interiors should appeal to audiences that don’t know the period. Soundtrack oldies, spotlighting everyone from Burt Bacharach to Richie Havens, are used liberally but not all that effectively. Mammoth Woodstock gathering is suggested by a handful of bell-bottomed, puka-shell-draped stand-ins, plus computerized crowd shots. Which may explain how Alison stumbles upon her mom so easily in the mass of writhing bodies.

• Production: A Miramax release of a Punch Productions pic in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, Groucho Film Partnership. Produced by Dustin Hoffman, Tony Goldwyn, Jay Cohen, Neil Koenigsberg, Lee Gottsegen, Murray Schisgal. Executive producers, Graham Burke, Greg Coote. Co-producer, Josette Perotta. Directed by Tony Goldwyn. Screenplay, Pamela Gray.
• With: Pearl Kantrowitz - Diane Lane Marty Kantrowitz - Liev Schreiber Alison Kantrowitz - Anna Paquin Walker Jerome - Viggo Mortensen Lilian Kantrowitz - Tovah Feldshuh Daniel Kantrowitz - Bobby Boriello

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A Walk on the Moon

Where to Watch

Diane Lane (Pearl Kantrowitz) Viggo Mortensen (Walker Jerome) Bobby Boriello (Daniel Kantrowitz) Anna Paquin (Alison Kantrowitz) Tovah Feldshuh (Lillian Kantrowitz) Liev Schreiber (Marty Kantrowitz) Julie Kavner (P.A. Announcer) Stewart Bick (Neil Leiberman) Jess Platt (Herb Fogler) Mahée Paiement (Mrs. Dymbort)

Tony Goldwyn

The world of a young housewife is turned upside down when she has an affair with a free-spirited blouse salesman.

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Metacritic reviews

A walk on the moon.

• 90 Slate David Edelstein Slate David Edelstein The elements in A Walk on the Moon, which is directed by the actor Tony Goldwyn (the bad guy in "Ghost") and written by Pamela Gray, feel miraculously right.
• 90 The New York Times Janet Maslin The New York Times Janet Maslin Even when it turns turbulent, the film sustains its warm summer glow, and makes itself a conversation piece about the moral issues it means to raise.
• 90 Newsweek Newsweek A Walk on the Moon not only effectively captures the emotional development of all its characters, but it also neatly encapsulates the tumult of the 60s.
• 80 Village Voice Village Voice Tony Goldwyn, making his directorial debut, lets his cast do the work for him, and they hold up well.
• 75 Rolling Stone Peter Travers Rolling Stone Peter Travers Whenever the drama drifts into soap opera, the actors restore the balance.
• 70 L.A. Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert L.A. Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert Paula Gray wrote the script (it was her UCLA senior thesis), and if there are gooey spots, there's also nicely turned, lived-in dialogue and a gentle affection for all her characters.
• 70 Washington Post Stephen Hunter Washington Post Stephen Hunter It believes, in the end, in the decency of most people.
• 63 The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey Standing back a step from A Walk on the Moon's dippy charms, the movie delivers less than it initially promises.
• 50 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert The movie's problem is that it loads the casting in a way that tilts the movie in the direction of a Harlequin romance.
• 50 San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego Though short on subtlety, A Walk on the Moon does offer the consolation of some decent performances.
• See all 22 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for A Walk on the Moon

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