Pauline Kael
“…. The characters in Shoot the Moon … aren't taken from the movies, or from books, either. They're torn--bleeding--from inside Bo Goldman and Alan Parker and the two stars, Diane Keaton and Albert Finney, and others in the cast….
“Diane Keaton may be a star without vanity: she's so completely challenged by the role of Faith that all she cares about is getting the character right. Faith's eyes are squinched and you can see the crow's-feet; at times her face is bloated from depression, and she has the crumbling-plaster look of an old woman. Keaton is tall but not big, yet she gives you a feeling of size--of being planted and rooted, while George is buffeted about. He doesn't know how he was cast loose or what he's doing at sea. He has done it to himself and he can't figure out why. Throughout the movie, he's looking for a dock--he's reaching out to his wife. But Faith is unyeilding; she doesn't want more pain. Very few young American movie actresses have the strength and the instinct for the toughest dramatic roles--intelligent, sophisticated heroines. Jane Fonda did, around the time that she appeared in Klute and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, but that was more than ten years ago. There hasn't been anybody else until now. Diane Keaton acts on a different plane from that of her previous film roles; she brings the character a full measure of dread and awareness, and does it in a special, intuitive way that's right for screen acting. Nothing looks rehearsed, yet it's all fully created. She has a scene alone in the house in the early days of the separation--soaking in a tub, smoking a joint and singing faintly (a Beatles song--"If I Fell"), getting out to answer the phone, and then just standing listlessly, wiping off her smudged eyeliner. It's worthy of a Jean Rhys heroine; her eyes are infinitely sad--she's cracking, and you can sense the cold, windy rmenants of passion that are cracking her. But this scene is a lull between wars….
“This film may recall Irvin Kershner's 1970 Loving--a story of separating that had a high level of manic pain. But the wife in that (played with great delicacy by Eva Marie Saint) wasn't the powerhouse that Faith is. Faith doesn't back down when she and George fight, and her angry silence is much stronger than George's desperate chatter--Faith has no guilt. Shoot the Moon may also call up memories of Long Day's Jouney Into Night … But in that, too, the husband held the power….
“…. [Parker's collaborators] must have helped free him to devote his full attention to the cast. He directs the actors superbly. Diane Keaton and Albert Finney give the kind of performances that in the theatre become legendary, and, in its smaller dimensions, Dana Hill's Sherry is perhaps equally fine….”
Pauline Kael
New Yorker, January 18, 1982
Taking It All In, 290-95
“Diane Keaton may be a star without vanity: she's so completely challenged by the role of Faith that all she cares about is getting the character right. Faith's eyes are squinched and you can see the crow's-feet; at times her face is bloated from depression, and she has the crumbling-plaster look of an old woman. Keaton is tall but not big, yet she gives you a feeling of size--of being planted and rooted, while George is buffeted about. He doesn't know how he was cast loose or what he's doing at sea. He has done it to himself and he can't figure out why. Throughout the movie, he's looking for a dock--he's reaching out to his wife. But Faith is unyeilding; she doesn't want more pain. Very few young American movie actresses have the strength and the instinct for the toughest dramatic roles--intelligent, sophisticated heroines. Jane Fonda did, around the time that she appeared in Klute and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, but that was more than ten years ago. There hasn't been anybody else until now. Diane Keaton acts on a different plane from that of her previous film roles; she brings the character a full measure of dread and awareness, and does it in a special, intuitive way that's right for screen acting. Nothing looks rehearsed, yet it's all fully created. She has a scene alone in the house in the early days of the separation--soaking in a tub, smoking a joint and singing faintly (a Beatles song--"If I Fell"), getting out to answer the phone, and then just standing listlessly, wiping off her smudged eyeliner. It's worthy of a Jean Rhys heroine; her eyes are infinitely sad--she's cracking, and you can sense the cold, windy rmenants of passion that are cracking her. But this scene is a lull between wars….
“This film may recall Irvin Kershner's 1970 Loving--a story of separating that had a high level of manic pain. But the wife in that (played with great delicacy by Eva Marie Saint) wasn't the powerhouse that Faith is. Faith doesn't back down when she and George fight, and her angry silence is much stronger than George's desperate chatter--Faith has no guilt. Shoot the Moon may also call up memories of Long Day's Jouney Into Night … But in that, too, the husband held the power….
“…. [Parker's collaborators] must have helped free him to devote his full attention to the cast. He directs the actors superbly. Diane Keaton and Albert Finney give the kind of performances that in the theatre become legendary, and, in its smaller dimensions, Dana Hill's Sherry is perhaps equally fine….”
Pauline Kael
New Yorker, January 18, 1982
Taking It All In, 290-95
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