A Walk on the Moon

It's that oh-so-seminal summer of '69, and Pearl Kantrowitz (Diane Lane), a comely young housewife, is spending it shvitzing in the Catskills with her straight-arrow husband (Liev Schreiber), her menschy mother-in-law (Tovah Feldshuh), and her precocious kids (Anna Paquin and Bobby Boriello). She's realizing her life's as flat as a mah jong tile when a hippie blouse salesman (Viggo Mortensen) pulls into the campground peddling his wares -- and the chance for Pearl to indulge in a little peace, love, and happiness.

Indeed, there hasn't been such a steamy unbuckling of the Borscht Belt since Dirty Dancing. In his directorial debut, actor Tony Goldwyn (Kiss the Girls) culls fine performances from all, especially Lane, who's an understated, sensual presence as the repressed Pearl. Yet it becomes increasingly difficult to think of Mortensen as the essence of sun-cracked virility when people keep referring to him as the Blouse Man (i.e., "Are you shtupping the Blouse Man?"). Such snickering moments, as well as a tendency to oversteep the nostalgia, ultimately ground this Walk on the Moon.

-- Alicia Potter