Main Cast: Ben Affleck, Jill Clayburgh, Jeremy Davies, Amy Locane, Rose McGowan, Lesley Ann Warren, Rachel Weisz
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
Plot
Two men return home from the Army to find that their attitudes on life, love, and the town where they grew up have changed in this bittersweet coming-of-age drama. Sonny Burns (Jeremy Davies) and Gunner Casselman (Ben Affleck) are two guys from Indianapolis who were drafted during the Korean War. In high school, Gunner was a football player and big man on campus, while Sonny was a social outcast who kept to himself. Sonny spent most of his hitch in the Army in Kansas City, while Gunner was stationed in Japan and found his perspectives changed by exposure to Asian philosophies. Gunner and Sonny run into each other on a troop train as they return to Indiana in 1954. While they were never close in school, Gunner finds himself reaching out to Sonny, believing that Sonny is a deep thinker, though Sonny spends a lot more time thinking about girls than his place in the universe. Sonny has a girlfriend, Buddy (Amy Locane), who would like to get married; Sonny's mother Alma (Jill Clayburgh) is almost as eager as Buddy to see her son head to the altar, but Sonny doesn't find Buddy very interesting, and he's not sure if he wants to settle in Indianapolis. He's far more attracted to Gail (Rose McGowan), an exotic looking brunette who appeals to his girly-magazine fantasies, but while he can make love to Buddy, he's struck with impotence when Gail offers to sleep with him. Meanwhile, Gunner has fallen in love with Marty Pilcher (Rachel Weisz), a sexy Jewish woman, but Gunner's mother Nina (Lesley Ann Warren), who seems inappropriately fond of her son, doesn't care for Marty and spouts anti-Semitic venom at her son in hopes of driving him away from his new girlfriend. Like Sonny, Gunner finds himself thinking that his destiny lies outside of his home town. Dan Wakefield wrote the screenplay for Going All the Way, based on his own novel. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
A combination of broad humor and character-driven drama, Going All the Way is miles away from director Mark Pellington's more action-oriented later efforts. A coming-of-age tale, it hinges on the union of opposites: the sweet and the profane; the adolescent and the insightful; the confident and the meek; the small-town and the urban. Jeremy Davies gives another terrific performance as awkward young vet Sonny Burns, a talented photographer who longs to be the life of the party but finds his better qualities submerged in a his fear of inadequacy. Precise verbal and physical inflections ground the actor's performance, while Dan Wakefield's script gives him plenty of layers to explore. There isn't another young actor working today who could have provided a better foil for Davies than golden boy Ben Affleck. His character's mixture of cocky strut and tentative introspection both celebrates and complicates jock-boy clichés; love him or hate him, he's what Sonny longs to be. As Sonny's mother, Jill Clayburgh hacks recognizable human emotions out of a role that seems to have been written as a caricature. Amy Locane, meanwhile, invests girl-next-door stereotypes with quiet dignity. Lesley Ann Warren, Rachel Weisz, and Rose McGowan have smaller parts, but each actress showcases her own proven brand of sex appeal; Warren oozes Oedipal danger, Weisz comes off haughty and knowing, and McGowan does her sultry and belligerent thing. Some viewers may take exception to the way Wakefield and Pellington populate their suburbs with an endless series of romantic and maternal man-traps, but young men often perceive impending domesticity as the enemy. Besides, Davies turns in such a nuanced performance as the horny, stifled Sonny that even at its most testosterone-fuelled, the film comes off sweet. Pellington and cinematographer Bobby Bukowski also display a quiet visual pizazz that energizes the scenes of comic excess. Such cinematic flair, combined with the fine cast, elevates a fairly familiar story into a low-key pleasure. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Keven Lock - Art Director, Ellen Chenoweth - Casting, Andre Lamal - Co-producer, Arianne Phillips - Costume Designer, William Paul Clark - First Assistant Director, Mark Pellington - Director, Leo Trombetta - Editor, Michael Mendelsohn - Executive Producer, Richard S. Wright - Executive Producer, Tom Rosenburg - Executive Producer, Ted Tannenbaum - Executive Producer, Doreen Vantyne - Hair Styles, Mark Lipson - Line Producer, Tomandandy - Songwriter, Raqueli Dahan - Makeup, Therese DePrez - Production Designer, Bobby Bukowski - Cinematographer, Elyse Katz - Production Manager, Sigurjon Sighvatsson - Producer, Tom Gorai - Producer, Nicholas Evans - Set Designer, Tom Paul - Sound/Sound Designer, Darren King - Sound Editor, Gary Linn Rittenhouse - Stunts, Dan Wakefield - Screenwriter, Eric Schmidt - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Michael J. Latino - First Assistant Camera, James McQuaide - Post Production Supervisor, Michelle Katz - Production Coordinator, Christine Gee - Script Supervisor, Sholto Roeg - Second Assistant Director, John Sisti - Supervising Sound Editor, Tod Modisett - First Assistant Editor
