Moonlight Mile

Oscar® winners Dustin Hoffman (Best Actor, 1980, Kramer vs. Kramer), Susan Sarandon (Best Actress, 1996, Dead Man Walking), and Holly Hunter (Best Actress, 1994, The Piano) star with Jake Gyllenhaal (The Good Girl) in Moonlight Mile -- an uplifting story of endearing honesty and humor. When Joe Nast (Gyllenhaal) experiences an unexpected loss, he wants to be the man he believes everyone wants him to be -- the dutifully bereaved husband-to-be and the perfect would-be son-in-law to Ben (Hoffman) and Jojo (Sarandon). But then another woman unexpectedly enters his life, and he's torn between fulfilling his new roles and following his heart.

For anyone who has lost a loved one, Moonlight Mile will ring true with heartfelt emotion. Like the characters in this well-acted film, writer-director Brad Silberling confronted death when his girlfriend, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, was murdered in 1989. That tragedy gives Moonlight Mile its mournful authenticity, beginning in 1973 after the killing of a young woman whose fiancé, Joe (Jake Gyllenhaal), is living with her grieving parents (Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon) while contemplating his uncertain future. The film is occasionally sidetracked by Hollywood slickness, but Silberling (who scored box-office hits with Casper and City of Angels) gets the emotional details exactly right, and a potentially formulaic romance between Joe and a local girl (superbly played by newcomer Ellen Pompeo) feels like a natural step toward recovery. Holly Hunter plays a small but pivotal role, and while Moonlight Mile lacks the gravity of the dramatically similar In the Bedroom, it springs from the same source of compassionate understanding. --Jeff Shannon