Shoot the Moon

**Shoot the Moon** is a 1982 film starring Albert Finney, Diane Keaton, Karen Allen, Peter Weller and Dana Hill, directed by Alan Parker, written by Bo Goldman and produced by Alan Marshall.

## Plot

In Marin County, California, writer George Dunlap and his wife Faith are an unhappy couple who live with their daughters Sherry, Jill, Marianne and Molly in a farmhouse that George has refurbished. George is preparing to attend an awards banquet in his honor, when he receives a phone call from Sandy, a single mother with whom he has begun an affair. Sherry, the oldest of the four children, picks up the phone and listens in on the conversation.

After the kids leave for school the next morning, Faith expresses her suspicions of the affair, prompting George to leave and move into his beach house. Sherry refuses to speak to George, while her sisters visit George on weekends. Jill, Marianne and Molly also meet Sandy, who harbors cynicism towards them and views them as a distraction in her sexual affair with George.

Faith falls into depression, but is elated when she begins a relationship with Frank Henderson, a contractor she has hired to build a tennis court on the grove of the farmhouse. One day, George visits the farmhouse, aggressively requesting to Faith that he be able to give Sherry her birthday present, a typewriter. George grows frustrated upon meeting Frank and seeing the construction work being done to the yard. George returns to the home later that night, again demanding that he be able to give Sherry her present. When Faith refuses to let him in, George breaks the door apart, pushes her out of the house, and blocks the entrance door with a chair. After Sherry refuses the gift, George spanks her repeatedly. The other children try to fight him off, but George does not relent until after Sherry threatens him with a pair of scissors. After letting herself back into the house, Faith comforts a sobbing Sherry, and George leaves ashamed.

George and Faith go to court to begin the first stage of their divorce proceedings, which involves joint custody of the children. After the court hearing, Faith tells George that her father has been hospitalized. At the hospital, they both downplay the disintegration of their marriage, but Faith’s father senses that they are lying, and dies shortly thereafter.

After the funeral, George finds Faith having dinner at a restaurant and joins her. They have a heated, passionate exchange, arguing about their relationship before getting drunk. They go to a hotel room where Faith and the children are staying, and have sex. After Sherry enters Faith's bedroom and finds them laying in bed, Faith asks George to leave.

When the tennis court is completed, Faith and Frank throw an outdoor party at the farmhouse. Sherry scorns her mother for having sex with George and Frank before running away. She runs to George's beach house where she sees her father playing a game of Hearts with Sandy and her son. George looks out the window and sees Sherry sitting on a pier. He goes to comfort her and as they reconcile, he gives Sherry the typewriter.

George returns Sherry to the farmhouse, where Faith invites him to visit the tennis court and meet Frank's friends. Under a seemingly friendly facade, George praises Frank for his work on the tennis court. He then goes into his car and crashes into the court repeatedly until it is demolished. Enraged, Frank pulls George out of the car and beats him relentlessly before walking away. As the children try to comfort their father, George reaches out his hand and calls out for Faith.