Themes: Sibling Relationships, Love Triangles, First Love
Main Cast: Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, Gail Strickland, Reese Witherspoon, Jason London
Release Year: 1991
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
In its elegiac nostalgia for the days of childhood innocence, Robert Mulligan's The Man in the Moon recalls another of Mulligan's earlier films, To Kill A Mockingbird. Set in a Louisiana backwater town in the 1950s, the film chronicles the coming-of-age of a young teenage girl. Dani (Reese Witherspoon) is a fourteen-year-old girl who shares a room with her seventeen-year-old sister Maureen (Emily Warfield). During hot summer nights, they sleep on the screened-in back porch of their home, talking about romance, the future, and the meaning of life. Moving into the house next door is a handsome seventeen-year-old boy, Court Foster (Jason London). Court meets Dani at the local swimming hole and they are immediately attracted to each other; through Court, Dani experiences her first true and perfect love. But when Court meets Maureen, the sparks really fly and Maureen falls in love with him too. Now Maureen is torn between holding back her love for Court or accepting his love and betraying her sister. A tragic event makes Maureen's mind up for her. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
Director Robert Mulligan returns with great success to the stomping grounds of adolescent angst that proved so richly fruitful for him with To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and The Summer of '42 (1971). The director's facility with young actors is proven again with a knockout performance from talented teenager Reese Witherspoon, delivering a fully developed, remarkably self-assured turn alongside such intimidating veteran thespians as Sam Waterston and Tess Harper. Lacking in the sort of high-concept appeal that tugs modern audiences into theaters, Mulligan's highly literary film is more of a short story than a novel, but that doesn't detract from its power. In fact, The Man in the Moon (1991) is the sort of sun-dappled country piece deceptively robust with high emotion that might be written by Horton Foote and directed by Robert Benton. Praise for a homespun drama doesn't get much higher than that. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Emily Warfield - Maureen Trant; Bentley Mitchum - Billy Saunders; Ernie Lively - Will Sanders; Anna Chappell - Mrs. Taylor; Dennis Letts - Doc White; Derek Ball - Foster Twin; Shari Rhodes
Credit
Jane Bogart - Art Director, Fredda Slavin - Art Director, Bill Borden - Associate Producer, Jerry Grandey - Associate Producer, Shari Rhodes - Casting, Anna Hill Johnstone - Costume Designer, Peter V. Saldutti - Costume Designer, Robert Mulligan - Director, Trudy Ship - Editor, Shari Rhodes - Executive Producer, William S. Gilmore - Executive Producer, James Newton Howard - Composer (Music Score), Gordon Hayman - Camera Operator, Gene Callahan - Production Designer, William M. Elvin - Production Designer, Freddie Francis - Cinematographer, Mark Rydell - Producer, Jane Bogart - Set Designer, John Moio - Stunts, Larry Holt - Stunts, Jeremy London - Stunts, Frank Norwood - Screenwriter, Jenny Wingfield - Screenwriter
The story tells of a 14-year-old girl named Dani (Reese Witherspoon) who falls in love with a boy three years older than her, a senior named Court Foster (Jason London). As their relationship begins to develop, however, Foster becomes more attracted to Dani's older sister, Maureen (Emily Warfield). After tragedy strikes, the sisters begin to learn invaluable life lessons that help to show how important family is to them.
