`Walk On The Moon' Mixes Heartfelt, Trite Moments

Movie review XX 1/2 "A Walk on the Moon," with Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, Liev Schreiber, Anna Paquin, Tovah Feldshuh. Directed by Tony Goldwyn, from a script by Pamela Gray. 107 minutes. Pacific Place. "R" - Restricted because of sexuality, language and some drug use.

First-time director Tony Goldwyn gets so many things right in this heartfelt nostalgia piece that you can only wonder why he and co-executive producer Dustin Hoffman were so taken with Pamela Gray's soapy script.

Goldwyn and Hoffman selected it, independently, out of piles of original screenplays, then decided to join forces and film it together. The difference between what they thought they were filming and the true nature of the script can be summed up in its change of title.

Originally called "The Blouse Man," Gray's screenplay is a trite story about a happily married Jewish couple (Diane Lane, Liev Schreiber) who traumatize their children and nearly break up when she starts sleeping with a hunky traveling blouse salesman (Viggo Mortensen). The story takes place at a Catskills retreat in the watershed summer of 1969.

The movie's final title, "A Walk on the Moon," emphasizes this larger context. As the lovers begin their affair, Neil Armstrong takes his one small step on the moon. As her husband is stuck back home repairing television sets for the big event, the wife and the blouse man run off to the nearby Woodstock festival. The country is transfixed by these history-making events, and so are the lovers, though eventually everyone has to come back down to earth.

Goldwyn was only 9 years old in 1969, yet he does a lovely job of evoking the period. It's all in the details: the rote rebelliousness of the couple's teenage daughter (Anna Paquin), a heavily made-up neighbor lady who tries to look like Barbra Streisand, painstaking re-creations of the televised moon walk and the rock festival, a golden-oldies soundtrack (carefully selected), the camp's limited pre-video entertainment options (a 16mm print of 1965's "King Rat" is the main event).

Hippies wander into the retreat, planning to bathe nude in the lake until they're drummed out by the residents. When Paquin's character has her first period, a loudspeaker announces throughout the camp that "today Allison became a woman." As the wine jug is passed at Woodstock, Richie Havens sings "freedom, freedom."

Unfortunately, the characters are soon explaining themselves with lines like "it's not that simple," rationalizing their lust, talking about how they didn't mean to hurt anyone, and suddenly we're back in Soap Land. In its final scenes, the movie's ambitions are reduced to the level of "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Dance to Jimi Hendrix."

More often than not, the actors redeem it. Lane and Mortensen struggle with underwritten roles, but their chemistry is undeniable. Paquin continues to impress as she grows into her teen roles, while Tovah Feldshuh makes the most of her part as a grandmother who sees meddling as her duty.

Best of all is Schreiber, who transforms the seemingly dull husband into an anguished, fair-minded man of unexpected depth and generosity. Long after the film's other domestic scenes are forgotten, you'll remember the one in which his son is rescued by the blouse man - and he finds himself thanking his rival for saving his child.