Diane Keaton, Shoot the Moon

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Andrew Sarris

“…. I loathe [Midnight Cowboy and Fame, two Parker-Marshall productions] as thoroughly as any movies I have seen in decades. Shoot the Moon is a step up, as far as I am concerned, only inasmuch as the subject is less obnoxious, and Diane Keaton is around to supply some of her own mystique. “…. [Shoot the Moon] does not illuminate the life that George and Faith lived for 15 years, the life that made them go their separate ways. Nor does it dramatize what they are going to do now. What Shoot the Moon does instead is wallow self-indulgently in the trivia of daily life in between outburts of psychic and physical violence that are endowed with just a touch of self-congratulatory Laingian smugness over the sheer authenticity of the feelings released amid all the mayherm. About the only compensation I can think of is in the spectacle of Diane Keaton singing a Beatles song with all its unattainable yearnings for fidelity. She sings herself into a visible heartbreak, but there is really no context for her intimation of loss. From first to last, Albert Finney's George acts in the manner of a dully unmotivated bully who smashes things and people so that he can whimper afterward that he didn't really mean it…. Not that any of the characters in Shoot the Moon show the slightest insight into … anything … that is interesting. Even the game of hearts, from which the movie derives its title, is seen merely as a cuddly family metaphor….” Andrew Sarris Village Voice, January 20-28, 1982 [don't have whole review]

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