Albert Finney and Diana Keaton are in the above photograph from the 1982 movie, Shoot The Moon.
----------{disclaimer / alert} -------------- I'm going to talk about the ending scene of this movie, so if you think you want to watch it and be surprised, don't read this post; just check back with Blue Collar Lit. tomorrow. Thanks. ----------------------- [end of disclaimer / alert]
_______________________________
--------------------------------------------
I saw this movie when it first came out, in Boston. I think I went because Diane Keaton was in it, and I liked her in Annie Hall and Manhattan.
Well, Shoot The Moon is no Woody Allen comedy - it is a drama about a couple that's getting divorced. Critics liked it; not so much audiences.
It is very well acted and good in every way, in how it tells the story. But it's a sad story.
The crazy thing for me was, seeing the whole movie on You Tube now, I totally did not remember at all the final, shocking scene. (Thought maybe I was traumatized by it and it became one of those "repressed memories" or something....)
Throughout the movie, you can see that these people truly did love each other and still do, in a way, but they just cannot get along.
Resentment has built up over the years.
They have four children.
Anyway, as the movie goes along:
the husband has a secret girlfriend
the wife finds out
they're both mad
he leaves the family home
they both hire lawyers and get on with divorce proceedings.
The wife, Faith (Diane Keaton) has a tennis court built on the property. The contractor she hires becomes her boyfriend.
So then the husband George is all, like, mad because - well - he can have a girlfriend, but his ex-wife may not find love again... seems to be his attitude.
George's anger problems become apparent as the movie goes along. He doesn't hit his wife, but he breaks some dishes, breaks a door down to get in the house, hits one of the kids.
Is his anger uncontrollable? Or does he choose not to control it? Like it's his privilege to have his way, and to throw a fit if he doesn't get it....?
After each event of anger and violence, either physical or verbal, the husband and wife at some point show love and consideration for each other again, and try to get along.
------------------------------ As the ending scene went, when George gets in his car and starts it up... I was shocked because I didn't remember that scene at. All.
There's a party going on, with lots of guests, at the family home where Faith and the four children live. The party is outside, at night, by the tennis court. There are lights all over, and tables of refreshments, somebody is playing some music, it's kind of relaxed and informal, people mingling.
Faith and George are talking. Being nice. She says he will have to come over to play tennis sometime and bring his new girlfriend (I can't remember her name). But Diane Keaton says they're invited.
You can tell both ex-wife and ex-husband are kind of feeling their way in the conversation, trying to create a new tradition of social friendship, since they aren't in their romantic relationship anymore and they each have a new love interest. They are trying to "move on" and be "grown up about this."
Just trying, you know?
And when they say good-night and he goes and gets into his car, turns the ignition, lights on, he backs up - and starts barreling straight for some building - a barn, or garage, or large shed of some kind.
You think he's going to crash into the building and harm himself that way, but then he veers and starts driving all around the party area, crashing into picnic tables, and parked cars. He doesn't look out for anyone, people are running, you see the guy with the guitar take off... Fence around the tennis court - he drives straight into that, putting a big dent.
Then he finally crashes into something, I don't even know what it was, but a lot of stuff comes crashing down, and he and his car are buried under some of it, so the car is finally stopped.
Faith's boyfriend, then, the contractor, runs over there, fueled by anger and outrage, he starts picking up the big pieces of debris off the car and flinging them aside so he can get at George.
He whacks the car with a chair, then throws the chair aside, hauls George out of the car and beats the hell out of him.
I was thinking there could kind of be three reasons the contractor was hitting George:
1. George was destroying the lady's property and spoiling her party
2. George destroyed the tennis court which he himself, (the contractor), had built.
and 3. to stop George from doing further damage.
-30-
