Box of Moonlight (1996)

Directed by Tom DiCillo; produced by Thomas A Bliss and Marcus Viscidi

Al Fountain (John Turturro) is an electrical engineer bordering on middle-age. He is married, contentedly if not happily, and has a son who is starting to disappoint him. On a whim, he pretends that his latest job, far from home, has been extended, and travels to find a lake where he spent pleasant holidays with his family. On the way, he meets the Kid (Sam Rockwell), an eccentric petty larcenist, who lives in half a trailer (literally half: he owns the right half) and makes a precarious but satisfying living selling stolen lawn ornaments. With the Kid’s help, Al, though unable to recapture the joy of his youth, recaptures joy, in some form or another.

To judge by its title and its plot, Box of Moonlight appears to be trying to be a charming tale of a man with little direction in his life finding himself. Though it is not a bad effort, the film falls short of whatever its goal may have been.

The major problem is the script. The story itself is good enough to sustain a movie, but it is lost in the details. The catalyst for Al’s adventure seems to be his discovery of his first grey hair. After that, he experiences several times the illusion of time moving backward. The obviousness of the metaphor is plain – though it takes a long time for Al to realise it, even considering his search for the lost lake of his childhood – yet it really has nothing to do with his friendship with the Kid. That is, in truth, a separate movie, and the worries Al may have, subconsciously, over aging are irrelevant.

Al’s character hurts the film. He comes across as largely unlikeable. That’s not to claim that he is a bad person, or even that he cannot be liked. There is just little about him that appeals. He is not very bright, he treats his wife perfunctorily, and isn’t that involved with his son. These elements are marginally remedied at the end, but not by much.

As well, there are parts of the script that are actually unpleasant; the inclusion of a clergyman who turns out to be an axe-murderer is pointless, unless to show hypocrisy. (There is, in fact, an anti-Christian aspect to the movie that serves no purpose except, perhaps, to gratify something personal in the writer (who is also the director). They have no bearing on the plot or the characters.) Al’s rejection of the rigid boundaries of his life are manifested in vandalism of his work-place, which is unimaginative and rather childish.

The one reward in watching Box of Moonlight is the performance of Sam Rockwell. He makes the quirkiness of the Kid, at times rather self-conscious, credible, and ably manages at one point to show the Kid’s secret insecurity and loneliness. This was Rockwell’s first big rôle, I think, though the film itself was not seen much, and showed what he was capable of. His versatility has become well-known.

Over all, Box of Moonlight gives me the impression of having been made for those who are fans of DiCillo, and for the deliberate exclusion of those who ‘don’t get’ the writer/director’s work.