• A very solid film—a recommend that won’t touch the top 10-20 of 1991 but is a tender coming of age drama with the debut performance of a 15 year old Reese Witherspoon (who apparently landed the role on an audition for an extra) and the final archiveable film for Robert Mulligan as director (To Kill a Mockingbird)
  • Mulligan’s best work have nostalgia and child acting (To Kill a Mockingbird (ok not so much the nostalgia here) and Summer of 42’
  • Elvis—an obsession of young Reese in the film—the film tenderly captures the feeling of a first kiss, first love, heartbreak
  • The ending tragedy packs a well-earned wallop
  • I think Sam Waterston is great in Woody’s Interiors and Crimes and Misdemeanors but he’s miscast here as a southern fisherman- it’s bad
  • Ebert really went for it—he overrates it— “The Man in the Moon” is a wonderful movie, but it is more than that, it is a victory of tone and mood. It is like a poem
  • Recommend