BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

bjarias You can she why she gets selected to do infidelity.. she just nails (no PI) that kind of storyline each time. And she does not write the scripts, so she cannot be blamed for the weak 'Hollywood' ending in this one. In the movie, every time the husband leaves, she sneaks off to have a full blown steamy roll-around with the new hot guy in her life, guilty-knowing (but not much caring) what she's doing to her family. In reality it would have been much more believable were she to run off and give the new lover a go-round for awhile. Then him or her getting bored with each other, she could attempt a return, only to discover she's been replaced by the hapless hubby. It'd be one thing if she were just having a fling, but she falls addictively in love with the hunk. You totally see this at the end, only saying farewell because of the kids. Body language revealing, and her loins still aching.. evidencing who she really longs to be with. And with that scene, the film should actually have ended... her quickly turning and reluctantly forcing herself away from him. And just curious, but what happens next season when the irresistible force once again rolls into town... are all those 'shopping' days truly over? ...and of course would have been the story-killer.. but all granny had to do was go home during the week...or plain and simple, she don't end it, just threaten to squeal her out.

moviedude1 When a family spends the summer of '69 in the Catskills, both mother and daughter find new love interests. Diane Lane stars as a wife and mother who turns to the "blouse man" for affection when her husband can't get out of the city and spend any time with his family. Anna Paquin plays her teenage daughter who comes into her own during this time and needs her mother's emotional stability, which isn't there.The first thing I ask myself is the reality behind this film. Could this really happen? Yes. Could I believe something like this could happen in Lane's character? Not with her mother-in-law living in the bungalow, as well. It's a nice film based on a time when things were a little simpler, but I don't think the director gave very much opportunity for any of the stars to "give it their all," especially co-star Viggo Mortensen. Bottom line: good plot, great actors, bad fit.7 out of 10 stars.

laura_macleod Not the greatest movie to make you think and ponder about the meaning of life but for anyone who is a Viggo fan this is a movie to see him naked and having sex and that is worth a 10 out of 10. Diane Lane is good in these kind of roles but she plays them over and over again - Perfect Storm/Unfaithful/Under the Tuscan Sun etc etc. It seems she has one kind of range; sexy older woman having a torrid affair or looking for love. She is sexy and a good role model for an older actress. I like her family in this film - they were all kooky and yet I could understand why she wanted sex with Walker - he was a free spirit and awakened in her all the yearnings deeply buried. However, her mother-in law was a claustrophobic character - great to help out with the kids but having your mother in law so close wouldn't be good for sex life. I can see this movie was a product of 1960's mentality - bit stuck in a rut of your own making. Nowadays people would go to college in their 30's or even older. Women would got out to work and the extended family would not live together. I liked the way the movie made the mentality of that time alive. But as i said, the best part was seeing Viggo butt naked. Whew!

mentalcritic Previous commentator Steve Richmond stated that A Walk On The Moon is, in his words "not worth your $7". I ended up paying a bit more than that to import what is one of the worst-quality DVDs I have yet seen, of this film or any film in existence. Even when you ignore the fact that the DVD is clearly sourced from an interlaced master and just plain nasty to watch in motion, the film has no redeeming qualities (save Anna's presence) to make watching a top quality Blu-Ray transfer worthwhile. Not that this is any fault of the other actors. Liev Schreiber, Diane Lane, Tovah Feldshuh, and Viggo Mortensen all score high on the relative to Anna Paquin acting ability chart. Far more so than Holly Hunter or Sam Neill did in spite of an equally lousy script, anyway. Director Tony Goldwyn's resume is nothing to crow about, but Pamela Gray's resume includes Wes Craven's most dramatic excursions outside of the horror or slasher genre, so one could be forgiven for thinking this is a case of bad direction.As I have indicated already, the sole reason I watched this film is Anna Paquin. In her acting debut, she literally acted veterans of the industry with a minimum of twelve years' experience above hers under the table. While she is not as far ahead of her castmates here, her performance as a girl that starts the piece as a brat and grows into a woman whose world is crashing down around her proves her Oscar was no fluke. For some time I have been stating to friends that she would be the best choice to portray the heroine of my second complete novel, and a dialogue seventy-three minutes into this film is yet another demonstration of why. This woman could literally act the paint off walls. Anna aside, only Liev Schreiber comes close to eliciting any sympathy from an audience. Sure, his character spends the vast majority of the film neglecting a wife with an existential crisis, but he plays the angered reaction of a man who feels cheated brilliantly. I should know, even if it is not from the same circumstances here.Viggo Mortensen also deserves credit for his portrayal of a travelling salesman, although perhaps not to the same extent. In a manner of speaking, he is the villain of the piece, but he successfully gives the character a third dimension. Yes, his actions even after the whole thing explodes are underhanded, but not many men would act any differently in his situation. Nobody wants to be the other man in this kind of messed-up situation, so Viggo deserves a lot of credit for giving it a try here. Unfortunately, these are all participants in a story about a woman who feels trapped in a stagnant marriage where Tovah Feldshuh tells us that the Mills And Boon archetype of women being the only ones who feel life is passing by simply does not exist. Either writer Pamela Gray or director Tony Goldwyn thought they could just put this line into the film without thinking of how the audience might receive it. Anna even gets to speak the mind of the audience when she asks Diane who she is to be lecturing anyone about responsibility.That said, the film does have a couple of things besides Anna going for it. Mason Daring's original music, while not standing out in any way, gives the film a certain feeling of being keyed into the time depicted that helps where the other elements do not. Roger Ebert is right when he points out that while Liev is a great actor, putting him alongside Viggo in the story of a woman forced to choose between her marriage and her fantasy is a big mistake. He is also very correct in that when the film lingers over scenes of Lane and Mortensen skinny-dipping or mounting one another under a waterfall, it loses focus from being a story of a transgression and becomes soft porn. The film seems terminally confused about the position of its story. No matter how many times I rewatch Liev's scenes, I cannot help but feel he has been shortchanged in the direction or editing. One does not have to make their leads particularly handsome or beautiful, but taking steps to make them the most interesting or developed characters in the piece would have gone a long way.Ebert also hits the nail right on the head when he says that every time he saw Anna on the screen, he thought her character was where the real story lay. Stories about the wife feeling neglected and running into the arms of a man who seems interesting or even dangerous are a dime a dozen, to such an extent now that even setting the story in parallel with an event as Earth-shattering as the moon landing will not help. In spite of feeling revulsion at the manner in which her character's story is presented, Anna might as well be walking around with a neon sign above her head asking the audience if they would not prefer to see the whole thing through her eyes. While I am all too aware that it is difficult to control exactly which character your audience will find the most interesting from your cast, it is very much as if they did not bother to try with Lane and Schreiber. Fans of these two would be well advised to look elsewhere. Hopefully by now my ramblings about the respective performances will give some idea of where the whole thing went wrong.I gave A Walk On The Moon a three out of ten. Anna Paquin earns it a bonus point with one of her best performances (and that is saying something).