Themes: Starting Over, Down on Their Luck, Death of a Partner
Main Cast: Elizabeth Perkins, Whoopi Goldberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kathleen Turner, Jon Bon Jovi
Release Year: 1995
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A woman dealing with an unexpected death has to help her friends with their own crises in this comedy-drama. Rebecca Lott (Elizabeth Perkins) gets an unpleasant surprise while waiting for her husband to return from his daily jog -- he was hit by a car and instantly killed. A handful of Rebecca's friends and relatives rally around her, including her close friend and neighbor Sylvie (Whoopi Goldberg), her former stepmother Alberta (Kathleen Turner), and her younger sister Lucy (Gwyneth Paltrow), but she has a hard time accepting the fact that she's now a widow (or, as she prefers to put it, "the 'W' word"). It also seems that the women trying to offer Rebecca emotional support could use some of their own; Sylvie's marriage is hanging by a thread, and Lucy is depressed and cynical owing to her inexperience with men. But romance begins to find its way back into Rebecca's life when a handsome younger man (Jon Bon Jovi) -- hired to paint the house -- takes a shine to her. Moonlight and Valentino was based on a play written by Ellen Simon, daughter of comic playwright Neil Simon. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Peter Coyote - Paul (uncredited); Harrison Liu - Mr Wong; Julian Richings - Hairstylist; Jeremy Sisto - Steven; Scott Wickware - Policeman; Josef Sommer - Thomas Trager; Jack Jessop - Sid; Judah Katz - Marc; David Trim - Valentino; Carlton Watson - Henrik; Kelli Fox - Nurse; Ken Wong - Mr Wong's Father; Shadia Simmons - Morrow, Jenny; Erica Luttrell - Drew Morrow; Matthew Koller - Alex Morrow; Wayne Lam - Mr Wong's Son; Alan Clifton - Street Vendor
Credit
David Ferguson - Art Director, Liza Chasin - Associate Producer, Cathy Sandrich - Casting, Amanda Mackey-Johnson - Casting, Mary McLaglen - Co-producer, Denise Cronenberg - Costume Designer, David J.Webb - First Assistant Director, Tom Quinn - First Assistant Director, David Anspaugh - Director, David Rosenbloom - Editor, Howard Shore - Composer (Music Score), Patricia Green - Makeup, Robb Wilson King - Production Designer, Julio Macat - Cinematographer, Tim Bevan - Producer, Eric Fellner - Producer, Alison Owen - Producer, Carol Lavoie - Set Designer, Michael Kavanagh - Special Effects, Bruce Carwardine - Sound/Sound Designer, Ellen Simon - Screenwriter, Ellen Simon - Book Author, Brian Ruberg - Foley Mixer, Joan Chamberlain - Foley Recordist, Trevor Jolly - Foley Supervisor, Robin Harlan - Foley Walker, Sarah Monat - Foley Walker, Susan Medland - Graphic Design
Rebecca Lott is a thirtysomething poetry teacher who is widowed when her husband is killed while jogging. Helping her cope with her grief is a support system consisting of her sister Lucy Trager, a chain-smoker still trying to deal with their mother's death from cancer fourteen years earlier; her best friend Sylvie Morrow, who is trapped in an unhappy marriage to Paul; and her former stepmother Alberta Russell, a high-powered Wall Street exceutive so caught up in the financial world she has difficulty relating to anyone not involved with it. Romance finds its way back into Rebecca's life when a flirtatious handsome younger man hired to paint the house takes an interest in her, and his presence affects the other women as well.
In his review in the New York Times, Stephen Holden called the film "a genteel, buttoned-up soap opera" and added it "wants to be a grand, pull-out-the-stops tearjerker like Terms of Endearment or Beaches. But its situations are so awkwardly contrived that you can almost hear the machinery creaking. [1]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described the film as "very sincere, very heartfelt and very bad . . . Watching it, I felt trapped in an advice column from one of the women's magazines. I have no doubt many of the heartfelt statements in the film are true (actually, I have many doubts - but never mind). What bothered me was that the story never found a way to make them dramatic, or illustrate them with incidents. The movie is slow, plotless and relentless - one of those deals where you find yourself tapping your watch, to be sure it hasn't stopped." [2]
In Variety, Emanuel Levy called it "sharply observed, if a tad too earnest" and added, "Though screenplay betrays its theatrical origins, Simon resists the temptation to construct the women as broad types . . . [and] to emulate her famous father (Neil Simon) in his younger years, eschewing one-liners in favor of humor that stems directly from the intensely dramatic interactions. But tale's psychological bent drives Simon periodically to resort to an overly clinical, cathartic treatment, with artificially induced conflicts and resolutions . . . Nonetheless, all shortcomings are more than compensated for by the stunning quartet of thesps . . . These four actresses ignite the screen with so much power and charisma that one yearns for more ensemble scenes." [3]
Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "fitful, tritely amusing" and "filled with little but empty gestures, contrivance and jokes that fizzle." He added, "Still, the movie, for all its imploding moments and artificial dialogue, is surprisingly well-acted, its characters given a chance by director David Anspaugh to be vital, almost as if the actors went to extraordinary pains to overcome the lame script." [4]
In the Washington Post, Desson Howe said the film "skitters somewhere between mildly diverting and lukewarm . . . a feel-good, comically mediocre also-ran . . . the kind of movie in which everyone takes a turn being terminally adorable." [5]
