Sight and Sound
"...The Catskills community is lovingly drawn....[An] excellent 60's soundtrack..." 12/??/1999 p.61Premiere
"...An impressive emtional depth and richness of detail..." -- 4 out of 5 stars 11/01/1999 p.135 New York Times
"...Seductive....[A] beautifully acted tale of romance and responsibility...' 03/26/1999 p.E24 USA Today
"...The film's characters are affecting....It's solidly unpretentious and has a good sense of what it wants to accomplish, which is to show that even good people sometimes lose their heads..." 03/26/1999 p.9E Los Angeles Times
"...A film of exceptional emotional honesty....[The] film goes right up to the edge, inviting compassion rather than uneasy laughter..." 03/26/1999 p.F17 Boxoffice Magazine 0 of 10
A thoughtful script, sensitive acting and intelligent direction all combine to make A Walk on the Moon a pleasurable trip back to the heady days of the late '60s, when changing values challenged established customs, freedom clashed with duty and imagination and desire kicked out against convention and common sense. All these conflicts and many more are woven by scripter Pamela Gray into a tender tale which is both specific to its era and eternal in its truths...Although often very funny, Gray's script, under the deft and insightful direction of Tony Goldwyn, is never insensitive to the complexities of all the characters' feelings. Even the mother-in-law, played by Tovah Feldshuh, never stumbles into cliche or caricature. The decency of both husband and lover gives added heft to Pearl's dilemma as the well-cast actors--Scream 2's Liev Schreiber and A Perfect Murder's Viggo Mortensen, respectively--provide unique, multidimensional portraits of men with good hearts but very different lifestyles. Anna Paquin as the adolescent daughter, rebelliously eager to fully explore the sexual revolution at the same time as her mother, is wonderfully riddled with all the angst, charm, doubts, fears and confusions of a teenager. But above all Diane Lane, without any theatrical fuss or flamboyance, is lovely and appealing as Pearl, surprised by the cruel wonder of her fateful romance. Besides allowing his actors to fully trust their natural strengths, Goldwyn brings to the film an easy sense of period, an ability to actually make the love scenes between Lane and Mortensen realistic, romantic and sexy, and an acute ear for mood setting music, as the culture of Woodstock and the Catskills collide while the Apollo Mission heads to the moon, and Pearl steps out... - Bridget Byrne
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