| A bored
housewife is the focus of this film. And
if that doesn’t give you any
indication of the overall boringness of
the movie, then read on. Diane Lane (Murder
at 1600) stars as Pearl Kantrowitz, a
seemingly happy wife and mother of two
– until the family takes its annual
trek from New York City to Woodbridge for
summer vacation. Here, Pearl realizes
that she missed out on too much of her
life by becoming knocked up at the early
age of 17. So instead of
turning to valium like all of the other
hausfraus, she starts screwing the
traveling blouse salesman (Viggo
Mortensen, A Perfect Murder) that
occasionally pops into the shanty
vacation town to peddle wares to the
stranded women. She doesn’t learn
his name until later. And because the
film is set in the summer of 1969, the
filmmakers have Pearl and the Blouse Man
make love with the requisite nostalgic
backdrops – Woodstock and the moon
landing.
Pearl gives no
thought to the fact that her hard-working
television repairman husband (Liev
Schreiber, Scream) gave up things
in his life, too. Or to her kids, Alison
and Daniel (Anna Paquin and Bobby
Boriello). Or to her fortune-telling
mother-in-law (Tovah Feldshuh, Law
& Order) who keeps Pearl’s
affair from her own son. Or even to the
poor fools that have to watch this film.
The anemic
script is blandly directed by Tony
Goldwyn (the bad guy in Ghost) but
is more of a showcase for some very fine
acting. The best parts, however, are
actually from an unseen actress –
Julie Kavner is the uncredited voice of
the resorts social director that can
often be heard announcing to the yenta
vacationers "The knish man is on the
premises."
1:45 –
for nudity, sex and adult language
|
