Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Shoot the Moon (1982)

IMDb plot summary: A mother of four is abandoned by her husband for a younger woman. Husband, wife and children struggle to survive the seemingly inevitable divorce.
Directed by Alan Parker. Starring Albert Finney, Diane Keaton, and Karen Allen.

Shoot the Moon stars Albert Finney and Diane Keaton as a couple with four daughters who are in the process of dissolving their marriage. We see both of them try to navigate single parenthood, begin new relationships, and wrap things up somewhat civilly (although neither of them is very good at that last part). Writer Bo Goldman stated that the inspiration for this story was seeing how couples' breakups affected their children, and the children are easily the most interesting part of this story. These kids are rambunctious and nosy very much in the way a lot of real kids are, and they are affected by their parents' breakup in unexpected but realistic ways. Finney and Keaton spend most of their time being as petty to each other as they can, and without witty dialogue or an occasional catharsis it gets old pretty quickly, but there's a bit of saving grace in their relationship with their kids. The movie certainly ends in a way I didn't expect but it wasn't one of those times where just being surprising was enough to make me care. Overall a good cast in a not-very-good movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Shoot the Moon < Port of Shadows
Shoot the Moon < In the Company of Men
Shoot the Moon > Wyatt Earp
Shoot the Moon > Weekend (2011)
Shoot the Moon > Hellraiser
Shoot the Moon > As Good As It Gets
Shoot the Moon < War of the Buttons (1994)
Shoot the Moon > The Shaggy Dog (1959)
Shoot the Moon < You Only Live Once
Shoot the Moon < Tag
Shoot the Moon > Elizabeth Town
Shoot the Moon < Chungking Express
Final spot: #2789 out of 3665, or 24%.

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