Moonlight Mile

Reviewed by:
Tony McMenamin

Picture this for a doomsday scenario: Your fiancée has just been killed, days before your wedding, and you are left stranded at her parents’ house in a small, dead-end town where a life in their family has been planned out for you. You want to get the hell out of there, but you are expected to remain on as a surrogate replacement for their only child. Time to either become an alcoholic or work on a getaway plan.

Set in Massachusetts in the early ’70s, Moonlight Mile tells the story of quiet kid Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is searching for escape from the claws of mourning but feels indebted to the Flosses (Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman), who can’t believe their only child is gone. Solace comes in the form of a local hottie (Ellen Pompeo) who is dealing with her own loss, but any wrong move could risk severely upsetting his “parents.” Add to that the wracking guilt that he had called off the wedding and that his fiancée was on her way to tell her father about it when she was killed. Should he confess the truth and break free, or go along as normal to help the traumatized parents deal with their loss? A terse story of human experience in the face of death, Moonlight Mile is a dark comedy that revels in its unconventional treatment of death, love, and everything in between (like how to treat doggie diarrhea).

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