‘Walk’ Takes a Clear Look at Family in Tumult

“A Walk on the Moon,” a film of exceptional emotional honesty, takes place at a pivotal time in American life, the summer of 1969, when the Apollo 11 mission and Woodstock approach while the Vietnam War, with its divisive impact on the home front, rages on. Yet life goes on as usual at Dr. Fogler’s Bungalows, an old Catskills summer resort, where the Kantrowitz family traditionally spends its vacations.

The Kantrowitzes take a cottage for the summer, with Marty (Liev Schreiber) coming up on the weekends from the city, where he works long hours as a TV repairman. Sharing the cottage are Marty’s wife, Pearl (Diane Lane); her 14-year-old daughter Alison (Anna Paquin); her young son Daniel (Bobby Boriello); and her mother-in-law, Lilian (Tovah Feldshuh). With the moon landing imminent, Woodstock only a stone’s throw away and her daughter on the brink of womanhood, Pearl is feeling unusually restless, suspecting that life is passing her by.

She questions her friends as to whether they ever feel trapped by their lives and even admits to wishing sometimes that she were a “whole other person.” Marty, who is regarded as a lovable square by his daughter, is a devoted, dutiful husband, but the excitement has faded from his marriage, as he and Pearl are both weighed down by responsibilities and hemmed in by working-class economic realities.

Daily routine at the resort is punctuated by loudspeaker announcements, uttered by an unseen Julie Kavner, heralding the arrival of “the knish man,” “the ice cream man” and “the blouse man.” The last sells women’s clothing out of a specially equipped van.

The new “blouse man” is a sexy free spirit named Walker (a low-key Viggo Mortensen). A spark ignites instantly between Pearl and Walker, and it’s only a matter of time before it catches fire. Pearl, a beautiful woman who’s only 31--she was only a teenager when she had Alison--longs for the sexual ecstasy and freedom Walker represents, but their torrid affair inevitably will provoke a major crisis in the Kantrowitz family.

How the Kantrowitzes cope is the heart of the matter. Having succumbed to temptation, Pearl must now deal with the consequences to herself and her family as each one’s capacity for understanding and forgiveness is tested. The way things are thrashed out presents challenging roles for Lane, Paquin and especially Schreiber, who fulfills the promise he has demonstrated in smaller roles in films like “Daytrippers.”

Schreiber gives us a good man, hurt to the quick, but who must nevertheless find within himself the resources to rise to the painful occasion if his marriage is to have a prayer of survival. Pearl is in turn faced with inescapably hard choices--provided her husband proves to be even willing to take her back; Lane does such a good job of illuminating Pearl in all her frustrations and longing that we never lose sympathy for her.

In the meantime, Paquin, as Alison, reveals a joy at coming of age cruelly dashed by the wracking pain and fear that her parents may separate.

One of the most refreshing aspects of the film is that Lilian, played with effective understatement by Feldshuh, is not a stereotypical Jewish mother. She senses early what’s going on between Pearl and Walker, but in her attempt to cut short the affair she appeals to Pearl’s sense of responsibility rather than merely condemning her daughter-in-law. She reminds Pearl that she’s not the only person whose dreams didn’t come true.

“A Walk on the Moon” represents a double debut: for actor Tony Goldwyn as a feature director and Pamela Gray as a screenwriter, and they show both courage and judgment in dealing straight on with so much naked emotion. Their film goes right up to the edge, inviting compassion rather than uneasy laughter at the spectacle of people behaving foolishly in the grip of heart-wrenching pain and overpowering emotion. It is a happy coincidence that Goldwyn should be directing a script that as a UCLA thesis won the Samuel Goldwyn Award, a prize established by Goldwyn’s legendary grandfather.

* MPAA rating: R, for sexuality, language and some drug use. Times guidelines: language, adult themes and situations.

‘A Walk on the Moon’

Diane Lane: Pearl Kantrowitz

Viggo Mortensen: Walker Jerome

Liev Schreiber: Marty Kantrowitz

Anna Paquin: Alison Kantrowitz

Tovah Feldshuh: Lilian Kantrowitz

A Miramax Films presentation of a Punch production in association with Village Roadshow Pictures--Groucho Film Partnership. Director Tony Goldwyn. Producers Dustin Hoffman, Tony Goldwyn, Jay Cohen, Neil Koenigsberg, Lee Gottsegen, Murray Schisgal. Executive producers Graham Burke, Greg Coote. Screenplay by Pamela Gray. Cinematographer Anthony Richmond. Editor Dana Congdon. Music Mason Daring. Costumes Jess Goldstein. Production designer Dan Leigh. Art director Gilles Aird. Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes.

At selected theaters in Los Angeles and Orange counties.