Straitlaced Pearl (the luminous Diane Lane) is stuck at a Catskills summer camp in the summer of 1969 with her two kids (one of whom is played by Anna Paquin, who evidently took lessons at the Juliette Lewis School of Prepubescent Acting because she's all twitchy and pouty and coy like Lewis in Cape Fear) and her mother-in-law, Tovah Feldshuh, who is great fun as the psychic grandma (wouldn't that make a good band name? The Psychic Grandmas), while her husband (ever-adorable Liev Schreiber) toils in the city during the week and races out to see his family on weekends. But the poor lovable Schreiber misses one weekend, and suddenly his wife is all over the Blouse Man (ever-skeevy Viggo Mortensen), a hippie who sells, well, blouses to the ladies at the camp.
I'd usually be the last person to root for a frustrated woman to stay in a stifling marriage, but -- maybe it's my recent history, maybe it's the choice between sweet, clean-cut Schreiber and scruffy, vacant Mortensen -- I didn't feel one iota of sympathy for Lane's cheatin' heart. Maybe it's because Schreiber does such a fine job with a difficult role -- he manages to be decent and kind without seeming like a wuss -- that I started to think his only crime was that he was working so hard to put food on the table that he couldn't be around every time his wife got a little steam up her skirt. I know if I had Liev waiting for me, I could keep my panties on till he showed up, even if it took -- gosh! -- two whole weeks.
To its credit, the film doesn't make any of Lane's or Schreiber's decisions black and white, though it's a little disturbing that it posits Pearl's infidelity as her trying to relive a youth she never really had. It's not an especially deep movie, but it is engaging and sweet. It's got a good soundtrack, too, and uses the music well--the movie opens with staid Nat King Cole then, as Pearl starts to unbutton the Blouse Man, it moves to the hairy-legged folkies like Janis Joplin, and it reaches a crescendo with Woodstock itself. At the very end, there's a nice musical cue that's no less sweet for being predictable and about as subtle as a jackhammer.
I enjoyed this film a lot, and I think it will appeal to just about everyone.
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