Moonlight & Valentino

Moonlight and Valentino is a truthful drama about mourning. Elizabeth Perkin's character is well written and well acted. You really feel as if she has lost her husband. She goes through all of the natural emotions of sadness, denial, and guilt. Whoopi's character is annoyingly written, but she adds a human spark to Sylvia. Gwyneth's character is the epitome of an insecure college girl. She is written as if from experience. Kathleen Turner's character is easy to hate in a pitied sort of way. All in all the movie is well written and truthfully told. You are left feeling that even if you do lose the one you love, life will go on.

I saw this film shortly before watching In Her Shoes with Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz. There are a lot of similarities between the two films. They both have great casts and good acting. They both have stock characters of sisters who are very different, an offensive stepmother, a woman friend/confidant, an emotionally unavailable father, a dead mother and a surprise lover. Both films have the characters experience life-changing realizations and both films suffer from a kind of 'love conquers all' sentimentality. They both add a little titillation with Cameron Diaz in black underwear and a partial back shot of Gwyneth Paltrow naked.

Both films seem contrived, as if the writers of the works the films are based on did market research and said, "Ok, there's a market for stories about relationships between women, so I'm going to write about two sisters with an offensive stepmother…" In other words, instead of the drama emerging from the truth of the relationship, the relationship is invented to fit the dramatic situation. It seems forced, the characters don't seem real, the relationships are unbelievable.

The resolution of the tensions between the characters is simplistic with simple apologies completely whisking away years of acrimony leaving everyone feeling warm and fuzzy ever after. It's just not real. Romantic fantasy.

The characters in In Her Shoes are a little more overblown than Moonlight & Valentino, especially the stepmother part. Sydelle Feller, in In Her Shoes is so evil that it is difficult to believe that the father would stay with her, or even marry her in the first place. Kathleen Turner at least shows some emotional vulnerability as the stepmother in Moonlight & Valentino.

If you liked Moonlight & Valentino you will probably like In Her Shoes as well. Enjoyable performances in both, in fact, the actors bring depth to their parts that goes way beyond the contrived sentimentality of the scripts.

I thought that Moonlight and Valentino was a good film. The cast was terrific and brought life to the "talkiness" of the movie.

A widowed woman relies on her friends and a hot painter to get her through the rough time. Jon Bon Jovi is exciting in his first Big Screen role as "the painter". Good climax but it leaves you feeling like it's missing something.

You have to be in the right mood for this movie. Fortunately the night I watched it I was in the right mood. I enjoyed this movie. It wasn't brilliant but it wasn't awful. The plot was believable. Husband dies tragically, wife bottles up feeling, friends help her through tough times, she helps friends through tough times, her feelings finally come out etc etc. Sounds like a bad soap but is actually quite good.

The best bit of the movie for me was Elizabeth Perkins. For years I have suspected she could act quite well but previous parts haven't given her the chance to show it. This movie did! Elizabeth Perkins did a superb job of pulling off the part of the wife struggling to come to terms with her husbands death. The scene near the end of the movie where she finally broke down was a piece of brilliance on her behalf. Surrounded by three other popular actresses she shines through!

I'm glad I watched it! 7/10.

A Young English professor (Elizabeth Perkins) loses her husband while an anxiety ridden best friend (Whoopi Goldberg), a quirky younger sister (Gwenyth Paltrow), and an attached ex-stepmother (Kathleen Turner) help her come to terms with life and love. First lead role I've seen Perkins take charge, Gwenyth in a new light a role that made me love her even more, Goldberg in the same light as Boys on The Side (1996), and Kathleen Turner pulls off a successful business mother vying for the affection of a daughter that doesn't belong to her, a beautiful thing. Joining the cast are a few of films sexiest men Jeremy Sisto and Jon Bon Jovi. Definitely worth the watch!