Good 80's Films: Shoot the Moon

1982 Drama
From MGM
Directed by Alan Parker

Starring
Albert Finney
Diane Keaton
Karen Allen
Peter Weller
Dana Hill

There has been quite a number of films about divorce and I regard this as one of the best.  It doesn't make a mockery of marriage nor does it excoriate the two principals.  It also doesn't highly examine what went wrong but rather focuses on the time right after the parting.

I had a difficult time making sense of life right after my divorce (six years before this film) and I maintained a vulnerability for a year or so afterwards.  There is no question this is why I liked this film.  I almost typed enjoyed this film, but that may be a stretch.  Well, ok, I admire these actors and the writing and that is enjoyable, but it would be silly to say this isn't an occasionally tough movie to watch.

The movie opens with George and Faith getting ready to go to an awards banquet at which George will be honored.  She is sitting at her bedroom vanity table making herself up as their four daughters fuss around her, putting on her lipstick and powder and eyeliner and telling their mother how to fix herself up.  George is outside the room, looking very depressed.  Listening to all that incessant chatter would be depressing enough but it's apparent there's more to it than that.  He goes into his den and makes a whispery phone call to his mistress while his eldest daughter listens in on an extension.

Leaving their rural Marin County compound for the drive into San Francisco is a frosty time.  Couples who have been married 15 years and no longer have much to say to one another have frosty drives.  Both look so unhappy... him with an iron grip on the steering wheel and her looking out the window.

The next day they are still testy in their kitchen when she confronts him about his girlfriend.  He is speechless that she's found out.  They get into an argument and he says he'll go upstairs and pack his bags.  She informs him they're already packed.

These are two people who actually do still love one another but have taken their eyes off the prize.  They have become careless about their marriage and have certainly forgotten how to put it above their personal needs.  George comments that he no longer remembers how to be kind.   She claims that she was more focused on being a good mother than a good wife.  The four daughters have consumed the mother's time while George has put all his energies into his job which means he's gone a great deal.  

What the film is about to me is the great uncertainty that comes with a divorce and a new life but also the jealousy and bitterness.  It usually doesn't seem to matter which partner wants the divorce.  Even though he is carrying on with another woman, he wasn't thinking of a divorce.  He was more focused on having his cake and eat it too.

The story shines a light on the children as it should.  The eldest girl, Sherry, is bitter and resists seeing her father or speaking lovingly of him.  I had three favorite scenes and one of them is the father breaking down this daughter's bedroom door to give her a birthday present in his awkward attempt to mend fences.  He has locked the mother out of the house while the sisters go into full combat mode. 

I never particularly understood George's attraction to his girlfriend, Sandy, a single mother of a young boy, unless it was that she gave him the peace (yes, I spelled that correctly) that he didn't get at home.  Faith is jealous of Sandy but not nearly as much as George is with Frank.

Faith isn't just getting a new hairdo and wardrobe after her divorce.... she's having a tennis court built on her large property (much to George's annoyance) and studly Frank is building it.  Frank falls for Faith right away.  It takes her a while longer to warm up to him but she manages it.  Sherry doesn't understand how her parents can so easily and quickly fall for other people.  It also doesn't help that she's developed a teen crush on Frank.

Another favorite scene is the film's final one.  George shows up during a celebratory party on the tennis court and adjacent gazebo.  He has a quiet fit of blistering anger and uses his beat-up station wagon to demolish everything Frank has built, sending guests running for cover.  Frank yanks him out of his car and beats him senseless.  His daughters run to comfort him.  George reaches up to a nearby Faith as the film ends.  Will they get back together?  We'll never know.

What was most lauded by the critics were the performances of Finney and Keaton.  Both were astonishingly truthful.  He said that he realized he was playing a part of himself that had been a monster for years.  She undoubtedly used her recent breakup with Warren Beatty as fodder for Faith.

Hill portrayed the eldest daughter with a fierce determination for an actress so young.  (In real life, she was 18 while her character was 13.)  Most people remember her ear-popping cursing.

Weller and Allen are both what they need to be in their roles as the other lovers but the roles are tame compared to Keaton and Finney's larger-than-life performances.

The film was in good hands with Alan Parker and Bo Goldman, both with impressive credentials.  Goldman wrote the original script, his first, but it sat around while he adapted One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, cowrote The Rose and was the sole writer on Melvin and Howard.  When he showed the script to Parker, together they did some rewriting.  Both were married at the time with four and six children and apparently thought they had something to say about dysfunctional marriages.  Parker helmed four other movies I very much liked... Midnight Express, Fame, Mississippi Burning and Evita.  He excelled at hard-hitting dramas, films with social conscience and musicals... my kinda guy.

Here's my third favorite scene... good acting, bad singer, salty language and the promise of a three-pound lobster...

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