Moonlight Mile
Tags: comedy, murder

Plot synopsis:
Following the murder of Diana Floss (Careena Melia) in a restaurant shooting in Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1973, her fiancé Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal) elects to stay with her parents. Her father Ben Floss (Dustin Hoffman) is a realtor whose business partner has recently left. Ben and Joe go into business as Floss & Son, as this was their plan before Diana's death. Joe goes to the post office to retrieve all the invitations that had been sent out for his and Diana's wedding, and with the help of Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo) he retrieves seventy four of seventy five. She finds the last invitation and takes it to his house later that night. He drops her off at a local bar, and returns home, despite her inviting him in for a drink. Joe and Ben attend a local property fair, and Ben pitches the idea of redeveloping a block in the town to developer Mike Mulcahey (Dabney Coleman). Mulcahey agrees, but they need to get all the tenants to agree.
Diana's friends come round to look through her possessions, much to the consternation of her mother Jojo (Susan Sarandon). They then take Joe out for a drink at the same bar Bertie went into the previous night. Joe puts "Moonlight Mile" on the jukebox and Bertie dances with him, to jealous looks from Diana's friends. Joe convinces Ben to let him talk to the bar's owner to convince them to sell. He asks the bartender who owns the bar, but the bartender does not give him the information. Feeling trapped at the Floss home, Joe goes to see Bertie and they sleep together. He leaves early the next morning.
Ben is frustrated at the lack of progress and goes to the bar to see the owner, where he meets Bertie and tells her about Diana. Bertie finds Joe and confronts him; he confesses to her that he had split up with Diana three days before she was killed. Bertie tells Joe about her boyfriend, the owner of the bar, who is lost in Vietnam. Joe goes to dinner at the Mulcahey's, where Mike's wife rudely presumes aloud that she thought Joe was not still tied up with thoughts of his fiancee's murder. Joe states that this is not the case, completely upsetting the mood at the dinner table. This causes Mike to call Ben and call off the deal. The family attends the trial of Diana's murderer. However the murderer's wife elicits sympathy from the jury, and the prosecutor, Mona Camp (Holly Hunter), asks Joe to testify and help the jury gain sympathy for Diana. While on the witness stand, Joe confesses that he and Diana had broken up prior to her death, and had not told her parents. Ben and Jojo are happy with the confession and gain closure. Joe symbolically writes 75 letters expressing his newfound clarity about what course his life ought to take and places them in mailboxes around town, hoping that one will get to Bertie.
Ben closes the shop, Jojo resumes her writing career, Bertie sells the bar, and she and Joe leave town.

Review: The dead person is the daughter of Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and Jojo (Susan Sarandon), her fiancé named Joe (Jake Gyllenhaal) is now living with them.
Joe befriends a girl named Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo) who also has lost someone.Like I said the subject is handled in a very good way.
Highlighted by phenomenal performances by Hoffman, Sarandon and Hunter, the film is truly inspiring, despite some overly-sentimental moments.Brad Silberling has created an amazing piece of film.
Some cynics may find the film too sentimental and will claim they predicted the entire movie, but if one is able to ignore the odd mushy moment (there's one or two), "Moonlight Mile" is a cinematic triumph.
OK this movie is not for everyone some people are bound to find it really boring and a bit of a drag so if you into all action and full of energy kind of films then I would advise you not to even consider this but to all the people who are into dramas or Jake Gyllenhaal then I would recommend this movie 100%.
Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon as the parents of their murdered daughter, Ben and Jo Jo, clinging on to her fiancée as they feel he is a big part of her and don't want to see him leave them too, while Jake Gyllenhaal as the part of Joe the nearly son-and -law to Ben and Jo,Jo, who tries to be perfect for them and be everything he wants them to be despite what he wants..which he really doesn't even know..he's confused..doesn't know what he wants to do in life.
Joe (Gyllenhaal) doesn't want to hurt them by leaving, but has to find his own path now.The actors keep the movie going for longer than expected.
*** out of ****While not quite a great movie (it just barely misses the mark), Moonlight Mile is still an excellent drama that showcases some of the finest acting talent around, wrapped amidst a beautifully told story of a young man (Jake Gyllenhaal) who's trying to do what everyone expects out of him, but against the desire of following his own heart.
Siberling's intent is to portray a normal family dealing with life, loss, and love and whatever obstacles may come their way and he does a fine job of it.There are moments Moonlight Mile doesn't entirely ring true, but those moments are glossed over by the acting.
From Gyllenhaal to Ellen Pompeo to Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon, the cast is uniformly superb.
I highly recommend this movie to those who take a little time to read the characters, and who don't expect the director and writer to spell it all out for them.Enjoy!.
Imagine the struggle between accountability and being hurtful, living your life for someone else to help them and fulfilling your desires......now imagine that the movie is not the waste of time In the Bedroom was and you've got THE MOONLIGHT MILE.
The script is absolutely delicious, the acting out-standing and to put it bluntly, this film is brilliant.Joe Nast's (Gyllenhaal) world suddenly becomes very claustrophobic when his fiance, Diana, is shot dead.
Now Joe is stuck in Diana's child-hood home with her two grieving parents; Jo-Jo (Sarandon) and Ben (Hoffman) who both deal with their loss in very different ways.
The second choice becomes increasingly tempting when Joe meets local waitress and postal-employee, Bertie (Pompeo), who is dealing with the loss of her own loved one, Cal, who left for Vietnam 3 years ago and doesnt look to ever be coming back.
Joe and Bertie reluctantly fall for each other, and the relationship and trial of Diana's murderer propels Joe to confront all of his battling emotions and release a secret he's been desperately trying to communicate to Jo-Jo and Ben.Gyllenhaal, Sarandon, Hoffman and even new-comer Pompeo are absolutely magnificent.
Each deliver a beautiful performance with the help of director and writer Brad Silberling, a genius who you should be sure to be on the look out for.I have read some real hair-pulling comments about this remarkable film.
However, it is the acting of the cast (especially Hoffmann's) that makes us believe they are the people we see at the end of the movie, and their synergy with Brad Silberling's writing/directing makes the film work.
This happens to be the case here  though the moments of despair in this film never plunge quite to the depths of those in, say, `Ordinary People.'  In fact this might almost be called `Ordinary People-Lite,' a film about grief for a mass audience that doesn't want to be too disturbed by the experience.That may sound like a more negative assessment of the film than I am trying to convey, for `Moonlight Mile' is an often sharp and incisive piece of moviemaking, intelligently written and beautifully acted by Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ellen Pompeo as the postal worker who falls for the grieving husband-to-be.
Susan Sarandon struggles to bring her usual fiery passion to adully-written part, Dustin Hoffman looks great but is otherwise a bore, andJake Gyllenhaal comes across as an annoying Tobey Maguire clone, buteven more annoying than Tobey.The nadir?
Dustin Hofman, Susan Sarandon and Jake Gllynhall were really great but for me Ellen Pompeo was the real star of Moonlight Mile .
But all this technique really does, of course, is keep telling the audience, over and over again, "it's only a movie, it isn't real."Because in real life, people who know each other almost never use each other's names -- not unless they're calling out to get each other's attention, or want to kill each other, or both.This film doesn't rival the top offenders in this category, thank God -- the worst being "American Buffalo" (which made me run screaming from the theater after about fifteen minutes) and "Wonder Boys," both of which achieved a false, theatrical quality strictly because of this annoying tendency.
When I started watching Moonlight Mile I was already hooked on Jake Gyllenhaul and this movie just added to my admiration of his acting ability along with his amazing sex appeal.
The movies story, about people's grieve and solitude, is conveyed by a ensemble of brilliant actors, a script that's cheesy at times, but honest all the way, and a director that never succumbs to a mere show-off of soap-opera glitz as so many other reviewers have remarked.You may never get past the "kitsch" when dealing with emotions, just as you've always have some people who feel patronized by these emotions.
Ben Floss (Dustin Hoffman) and wife JoJos (Susan Sarandon) only child--a daughter--was accidentally shot to death before she was to marry Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal).
This movie deals with three people dealing with the murder of a daughter.One of them was her fiancé.Moonlight Mile (2002) is directed by Brad Silberling.It's loosely based on Brad's own experiences.The cast does a great job.Dustin Hoffman is amazing.Today this great actor turns 75.Jake Gyllenhaal plays Joe Nast.Susan Sarandon is Jojo Floss.Ellen Pompeo portrays Bertie Knox.Holly Hunter plays Mona Camp.Dabney Coleman plays Mike Mulcahey.This is a film not to avoid.It's not a kind of film that makes you only cry and feel sad, it can also make you smile.The romance part is something I enjoyed.In the music department there is Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Jefferson Airplane and their guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, not to forget the Rolling Stones.The film's title comes from their song of the same name..
The heavily emotional scenes with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan caught the attention of acting legend Dustin Hoffman and then Silberling was able to make his dream project for his third film.Moonlight Mile (2002) is loosely based on a real experience.
Many films have done this in the past but Moonlight Mile has a different take on it because it is also about grief, keeping secrets and not opening up to people which I think makes it even more thought provoking and inspiring which I feel are the two most important elements to a film.So check this one out when you have the chance.
I would give it a 7.5 out of 10.There is so much not to like about this movie - Susan Sarandon overdoes the cool mom bit, they use each others' names all the time, Dustin Hoffman shuffles about like Rainman in several scenes, the love story is rather improbable, the ending too perfectly happy happy, Jake tends to have one expression through the whole movie and you don't realise it is in the 70's until they start talking about Vietnam.
We meet him as well as the woman's parents, played by Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman, at the funeral and we are surprised by the lack of emotion of any kind.
Other critics are calling the characterizations either too cold or too emotional, but one thing is certain in situations like extreme grief -- everyone reacts in his/her own way, and I think Moonlight Mile gives a little bit of a spectrum of human reaction to the insurmountable.Susan Sarandon has been pigeon-holed a bit as the in-your-face-no-BS ultra-liberal, and she does it again successfully here, but the character is so VERY written that way that it's not even an acting choice; it's a script obligation.
It's set in the early 70s...take it on faith, okay?If you don't like emotional films, have a problem watching films that deal with death and loss, and are upset at the idea that people might actually become emotional in such circumstances, calling any such emotion "melodramatic," don't see this one.If you only like films as mindless escapist entertainment, don't see this one.If you want all the plot points of the movie wrapped up in a nice little bow at the end, don't see this one.Even if the characters are somewhat stereotyped...the overly-dramatic grieving mother, the stoic grieving father, the awkward neighbors who don't understand what it's like and say all the wrong things at the wake...the movie seems to disappoint because we're conditioned to be left with a definite "message" at the end of this type of movie.
Face it, death sucks, life is messy, and sometimes the meaning is really unclear, and I like the fact that the film doesn't apologize for it.All in all, it's a moving story with mostly moving characters that, unfortunately, are a bit stereotypical and therefore can remind you of a dozen or so similarly-themed movies.
the movie begins with the death of a 20 year old girl, fiance of Joe (Jake G), and the daughter of Ben (Justin Hoffman) and Jo Jo (Susan Sarandon) (line from the movie....
Dustin Hoffman,(Ben Floss),"Meet the Fockers",'04, and Susan Sarandon,(Jojo Floss),"Alfie",'04, both were husband and wife and did an outstanding acting performance.
I love drama, plus Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman are great actors.
After the murder of his fiancée, Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhall) moves in with her parents, Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and JoJo Floss (Susan Sarandon).
Based on the personal experience of the director, whose girlfriend was murdered in 1989, Moonlight Mile is an intimate, touching, and often amusing film about coming to terms with loss and having the courage to tell the truth about it.
Ben feels remorse about his lack of emotional connection with his daughter but goes immediately back to work in commercial real estate and convinces Joe to come in with him as his partner, changing the company name to Floss & Son. JoJo is a tough minded writer without any affectations who rebels against the insincere displays of affection shown by people in the community, retreats into herself and visits past addictions.
Both help each other to come to terms with their emotional isolation and open the door to growth, powerfully dramatized when Joe testifies at the trial of Diana's killer.Moonlight Mile is an honest film because it dares to tell the truth about its characters.
There are two ways you can look at a film like Moonlight Mile.
This is the third Jake Gyllenhaal movie I have seen(October Sky, Donnie Darko, Moonlight Mile) and I have to say that you could have cast anyone in the Joe Nast character.
This movie is so bad that you feel embarrassed for the actors as they fidget uncomfortably through film-school-quality schmaltzy writing.The shallow, poor performances turned in by Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman only prove that great acting is not a gift, it's a craft, and it takes work and a competent director to put a scene together.
This movie is so carelessly acted that all you can think as you watch is, "I hope they got a good paycheck", because there's certainly no commitment to the material shown by any of the performers.The filmmakers might have gotten away with this unctuous family underreacting (by miles) to their daughter's tragic death if they'd left it at that, but they simultaneously try to squeeze every drop of sentimentality from the situation that can be managed.
Diana's fiancé Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal) is staying with her parents Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and Jojo (Susan Sarandon) who still treats him as their own son.
Hoffman and Sarandon are thoroughly convincing and then some, and ditto for the young lady.The story was touching, well told, and somewhere along the lines certain aspects must have hit home to someone.I recommend this story of confused love and confused relationships to one and all, except for the folks who go for blood, guts, and nice, loud special effects."Moonlight Mile" is a movie I will savor again..
Jojo and Ben Floss (Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman) are preparing to wade through the uncomfortable aspects of their daughter Diana's funeral: Diana was accidentally killed in a café when an unknown man attempted to murder his wife over a family dispute.
The highly talented Jake Gyllenhaal playing his usual reserved and comedic best, holding himself to the highest standard besides two greats like Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon.
Dustin Hoffman is great as ever and Susan Sarandon is true to character.
Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon are both amazing actors, but even their presence wasn't enough to redeem this movie.
I spent the first half of this film saying to myself "I want to like this movie because Dustin Hoffman usually delivers the goods." But he's not even that great in this.
Starring Dustin Hoffman (`Sphere'), Susan Sarandon (`Dead Man Walking'), and Jake Gyllenhaal (`October Sky'), all providing excellent performances.
Moonlight Mile is a movie that will touch the inside of your imagination and make you feel like your their oberving every moment of the film as if it werent a film but real life.
But the film's best performance is that of Jake Gyllanhaal, who plays the young protagonist with a deep complexity, and never allows the great Hoffman or Sarandon to upstage him.
It always amazes me how a movie with two phenomenal stars like Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon, either of which alone could make a great film, can still manage to be sub par.
The five main actors, Gyllenhaal, Surandon, Hoffman, Holly Hunter, and the newcomer, Ellen Pompeo, are SO GOOD it makes me want to find some way to personally congratulate them.
New heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal pairs with Oscar winners Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman, and Holly Hunter in screenwriter and director Brad Silberling's Moonlight Mile, but none of these fine actors shines in a hackneyed story that Silberling should have left in the wastepaper basket's darkness.Life goes on after tragedy.
Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon are fabulous, newcomer Ellen Pompeo is a far better version of Rene Zellweger and the young Jake Gyllenhaal is stunning in his range of emotions portrayed.
It really was unacceptable that they didn't put in any effort at all to make this movie feel like it was taking place in the early 70s.The acting is really the only positive thing I can say about the film and all of the performances are excellent with Jake Gyllenhaal and Susan Sarandon in particular shining.
The outstanding and riveting preformances by Susan Surandon, Dustin Hoffman, Ellen Pompeo, and the amazing Jake Gyllenhaal were enough to not even make you notice the slowness of the film at times.
MOONLIGHT MILE is a very touching, original piece of work from writer/director Brad Silberling (City of Angels) and what makes it more emotional is the fact that it's based around his own feelings of dealing with the death of Rebecca Schaeffer.
Finally, Ellen Pompeo does a convincing job of the post mistress in town who befriends Jake's character after the lost of his fiance.Bottom line:  Not the best movie of the year, but in the fall drought of any decent films, definitely worth taking a look..
And Susan Sarandon is sharp as hell in her best role in years--Hoffman has the most difficult task, portraying a man who is completely submerged in denial, but he serves the film well and handles the inevitable Big Moments late in the narrative with the class and skill you'd expect.This movie has some genuinely original points of view about the reality of losing a loved one, and the complexity of human emotion: especially how that complexity is usually at odds with how we're expected to behave in such situations.There is a tortured romance with Gyllenhaal's character that is cliched to begin with, and nearly altogether bungled by the writing.
This film is one of the most touching ensemble films I've seen in a long time with great performances by Dustin Hoffmanm, Susan Sarandon, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
It isn't just a film, it's an autobiography of one of the most personal moments in his life, and the result is the most honest, amazing, feel-good movie of the year!.
But the real star of this movie is Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky) who plays Joe, the son in law to be.
Gyllenhaal's character (Joe) takes up residence in the home of his fiancee's parents Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and JoJo (Susan Sarandon) following his intended's tragic accidental death just a few days before their impending nuptials.