Film: A Walk on the Moon

Wow, I am impressed! I loved "A Walk on the Moon!" The film is not new, yet it is worth checking out if you haven't seen it. "A Walk on the Moon" is set during the summer of the famous moon walk. This and Woodstock provide the backdrop for the story that unfolds. Pearl Kantrowitz is a mother left at an upstate New York camp for the summer, while her husband (as well as the husband's of the rest of the campers) commutes back to work in the City each week. Pearl is not merely bored with being surrounded by other wives and children the entire summer, but also feels like her life is not her own. She feels stifled by her marriage, feels like her husband cannot clearly receive the messages she's sending and that her life was cut short as their teenage daughter was the reason for her marriage, initially.

To his credit, Pearl's husband, Marty, is just as trapped by the life they live. He seems to handle it a bit better, and comes across as genuinely loving Pearl. He seems content with their life and marriage, despite that his own aspirations were cut short due to college being out of the question when he needed to work to support their family. Marty is, at first, incapable of growth himself, sure of the status quo and afraid to pursue anything else.

All of this leads to Pearl pursuing the "blouse man" (Walker Jerome). She and he have a passionate affair, far from the mundane reality of Pearl's marriage. Their relationship is consummated during the moon walk, hinting at the bold step Pearl takes exploring her sexuality. Later in the film, it seems Pearl would like the passion she finds with Walker to be shared instead with her husband. Yet Marty doesn't quite get the message.

Pearl struggles with her identity, lamenting early motherhood as stopping her before the starting gate was raised. Marty's mother is at the camp with the family, and she is quite an enlightened mother-in-law! Her character was somewhat unbelievable as I cannot imagine a prescient mother-in-law sensing an affair and not hating her daughter-in-law. She seems to keep her distance rather than interfere in any way. She is there to care for the kids and provide familial stability all while supporting both her son and his wife. Regardless of this less-than-realistic depiction of her role, she is a mother-in-law we can all dream to have, thus in a film, her character is something about which we might suspend our disbelief if only to enjoy what she represents; our wildest wish come true.

In the end, even as Marty comes to forgive his wife her transgressions, she is not let off the hook so easily. Marty asks her, "Who stopped you?" imploring her to answer for her actions responsibly to him as a partner in life. His question is not demeaningly stated, rather he asks her to meet him at a place of shared responsibility for the predicament of their life and marriage. He merely wants to know why she didn't try harder to get her needs across, since it seems his needs and desires actually mirrored hers. He wants to shed the staid nature of their lives and explore the new music and ways of thinking that are now iconic to the nineteen sixties in the United States.

It was nice to see the ever-familiar frustration of women as wife and mother pursued through a different lens than most films like this. There is no death like in the end of "Revolutionary Road," where it seems the entire family is punished for the dreams of the mother. Instead, we see the couple grow together, which is refreshing, even though this film is now over ten years old. I'm not sure how or why I missed this one the first time around, except that I was in the midst of caring for my then four and two year old children and movies were not on the radar. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.