Moonlight Mile 

Dustin Hoffman has officially come full circle. After making his break as an alienated youth in The Graduate three decades ago, he now plays father figure to a similarly wayward lad in Moonlight Mile. Also starring fellow Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, it’s a film with a darkly original premise that would have been twice as good without the requisite layer of studio schmaltz.

The story begins after a young woman has been murdered. Her parents and their would-be son-in-law shuffle off to the funeral, beginning an odd relationship forged by grief, denial and an unspoken lie. Dustin Hoffman’s Dad is a stammering, passive-aggressive bundle of neurotic energy, touchingly devoted to his wife and annoyingly oblivious to reality. Where once a younger Hoffman was told the future was plastics, his character is now a proselytizer for commercial real estate. Deciding to plunge ahead with their plans to go into business together, he ignores the fact his late daughter’s boyfriend (Jake Gyllenhaal) has no interest in building a career—least of all with a corduroy-clad Willy Loman.

As for Mom (Sarandon), she’s a writer who spends half her time mourning her daughter and the other half spewing bile at her hypocritical friends’ condescending condolences. The three characters interact on several levels, oscillating between acknowledgment and denial of the event that has brought them together. In the hands of three great actors these scenes do justice to the intriguing premise.

Once it’s discovered that the relationship between the dearly departed and their surrogate son wasn’t what they thought, however, things take a turn for the worse. Unfortunately, so does the film.

It’s as if the studio felt they had to pull out every device they could to make this sombre-themed film palatable. In addition to the A-list talent and saccharine romantic subplot, the film is inexplicably set in the early ’70s. This setting presumably justifies the oldies soundtrack which wriggles its way into every emotional peak and valley of the story. It’s one of several glaringly cynical touches that prevent this good film from being great.

Montreal Mirror