A Walk on the Moon

A Walk on the Moon is an atmospheric and understated drama of infidelity. Just as in Adrian Lyne's "Unfaithful", Diane Lane plays the somewhat neglected wife who, against her better judgement and plagued by many pangs of conscience, takes a lover. Tony Goldwyn's film is neither as exciting nor as much of an aesthetic pleasure as "Unfaithful". On the other hand, it is far more realistic.

In the summer of 1969, the Woodstock festival and the moon landing were landmark events. The Kantrowitz family are at a summer camp, but the father, Marty, is only there at weekends, as he has to look after his job as a radio repairman in the city. Meanwhile his wife Pearl falls for the charming travelling clothes salesman, Walker Jerome.

Marty and Pearl married very young because of an unplanned pregnancy. So they never really had a carefree youth, but now Pearl is experiencing her second youth, among other places at Woodstock with Walker. At the same time as Pearl's infidelity, her daughter Alison gets her first boyfriend and grows up a good deal when she sees her mother with another man at the hippie festival.

In A Walk on the Moon the lover is no cliché, as he is in "Unfaithful". Here there is no doubt that he sincerely loves Pearl, but when he realises that she cannot leave her family for his sake, he withdraws, defeated.