On Screen

...Winding up at Sandy's beach house, where George is staying, Sherry more or less makes up with her dad He drives her back to the party and runs amok with the car, reducing the place to a shambles Frank the Stud, enraged by the destruction of his handiwork, savagely beats up George, leaving him crumpled on the remains of the court The girls rush to him and the film ends in a freeze frame, with George's hand shakily extending toward his wife as he calls out her all too symbolic name Alan Parker's uncertain direction, with its arty filler and fumbling for significance, doesn't help clarify the murky script There are seemingly interminable shots of George walking along the beach Parker apparently thinks that solitary strolling in a panoramic setting suggests something other than a Salem cigarette commercial He also always has George park at the end of that long driveway to inject a little movement into a mostly static film Though Parker has been praised for his handling of the young actresses playing the Dunlaps' daughters, I wasn't exactly won over by any of them Inthe key role of Sherry, Dana Hill does little besides pout, whine and verge on tears Yet that is more than we get from Keaton, who resorts to her usual stammering, laughing nervously and compulsive repeating of words Finney is trapped in a single pose throughout shoulders hunched, face screwed up in pain, eyes full of confusion About one thing there can be no contusion The barely intelligible sound track is one ot the least subtle in recent memory Perfectly in keeping with the blatancy ot the entire enterprise, the song "Plav with Fire' accompanies Faith's decision to take Frank as her lovei and George returns home toi the last time to the strains ol ' Still the Same It this is art give me mindless entertainment, it this is matuiitv give me adolescence...

...On Screen MISSING THE MOON BY ROBERT ASAHINA Shoot the Moon is an American movie that has an "adult" theme ivorce—at a time when most domestic productions are being correctly criticized for aiming at adolescent audiences But it fails, not least because it tries too hard to be a foreign film The first sign of trouble crops up in the opening sequence, showing a farm in a misty Northern California valley On the long gravel driveway leading to a house lies an abandoned bicycle, its front wheel still spinning A quick cut inside launches the story in medias res, with Faith Dunlap (Diane Keaton) rushing to get ready for an evening out, distracted by the dubious assistance of her four daughters A viewer immediately wonders how one of these girls could have had time to run upstairs and join in the general confusion before the tire stopped turning Never mind, that symbol of childhood left behind clumsily foreshadows the emotional toll to come Meanwhile, in another departure from common sense, George Dunlap (Albert Finney) is taking time out from his last-minute preparations to phone his mistress, Sandy (Karen Allen) To no one's surprise except his, someone is listening on the extension upstairs—his oldest daughter, Sherry (Dana Hill), who has been going back and forth between her mother and father, as she will throughout the movie So within the first 10 minutes we learn all we need to know about the Dunlaps—or are going to find out, although Shoot the Moon drags on for another two hours Bo Goldman's script, at once too obvious and too opaque, features characters die-cut to fit the holes in the story After George walks out, for example, a virile young replacement named Frank Henderson (Peter Weller) conveniently arrives at the farm A contractor hired to build a tennis court, he turns out to be little more than a device created by Goldman to fill Faith's bed Other aspects of the film are puz-zlingly gratuitous In what should be a crucial scene, George breaks into his own house (having been shut out by Faith) to deliver a birthday present to Sherry Since at that point she doesn't want anything from her father, she barricades herself in her room He then batters down her door and grapples with her, prompting her to brandish a pair ot scissors in selt-detense Incredibly, this trauma has no consequences whatsoever Sherry continues to waver between George and Faith, and the violent conlrontation is never mentioned bv lather or daughter Indeed, it is Sherry's loyalty to her father that provokes the film's utterly improbable climax Faith and Frank are celebrating the completion of the tennis court with a party Sherry tells Frank, "You're not my father," then runs away...