Rating: 5/10

Writer: Adrienne Shelly
Director: Cheryl Hines
Cast: Meg Ryan, Timothy Hutton, Kristen Bell, Justin Long
Studio: Magnolia Pictures

SERIOUS MOONLIGHT stars Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton as a married couple whose relationship has stalled due to various internal and external factors.  The couple, Louise (Ryan) and Ian (Hutton), have planned a romantic retreat at their country home because, well that’s what couples do when the romantic fires are waning.  In an attempt to surprise her husband, Louise arrives a day early. There she finds that Ian has planned a retreat of his own – one away from his marriage and into the arms of a bubbly twenty-something played by Kristen Bell.

When Louise learns of Ian’s plans, she is far from pleased.  Being the woman of action that she is, she forms a plan to win back the affections of her husband through the love potion known to psychology professionals as Stockholm Syndrome – that’s the one where a hostage becomes loyal to his/her captor. I wish I could say, and hilarity ensues, but that is not the truth of the matter.

The premise of the film promises a darkly comedic application of the old adage “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  Sadly it fails to deliver. We’ve seen Hutton and Ryan in basically these very same roles in 1995’s FRENCH KISS.  Nearly 15 years later, Meg Ryan’s performance is reminiscent of seeing a woman wearing an outdated dress.  Though it still fits, it’s faded and worn out from years of use – it can never be what it once was, and she can never look as good in it as she once did.

We live in a world where NASA astronauts are arrested and charged with the attempted murder and kidnapping of their significant other, so I suppose it is possible that a high-powered Manhattan attorney would abandon reason and risk her freedom to commit the various crimes that Louise is guilty of in this story. Perhaps another actress in this role could have made the desperation of her act more believable. It is hard to feel sympathetic for Louise, who with a cell phone permanently affixed to her ear, is highly unlikeable from the beginning. She is a talkative loudmouth who barks commands and orders and has no time for a response. Is it her love for her husband or her refusal to take no for an answer that is the basis for her actions? Either way, it is easy to see why her husband is ready to get out of the marriage.

Because Ryan’s character is so unlikeable, Hutton’s job is much easier. Much-loved for roles in movies like BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, his charm is still present and one cannot help but pity him as he is duct-taped to various pieces of household furniture and endures both emotional blackmail and physical abuse from Louise and an opportunistic gardener played by Justin Long.

The arrival of Justin Long’s character brings the film back to life, but only briefly. He holds the couple hostage in their upstairs bathroom and for a moment you believe that the film will actually “go there” as he dominates the couple with violence and the threat of rape. But when Ian fails to arrive at the airport, jilted Sara comes knocking and then there are three hostages in the bathroom. What could have been a frighteningly gritty moment or a hilarious three-way exchange between the lovers in this triangle is just painful, mind-numbing banter.

The film relies on flashbacks of the couple dancing on their wedding day and overly wordy dialogue to illustrate that love was once present in Ian and Louise’s marriage, but these plot devices are barely effective and seem constrained in the space of the film, which takes place in the couple’s home, and makes it feels as though you are watching a stage play.

In the post screening Q&A, it was revealed that no one wanted to revise the script, as it was one of the final works of the late Adrienne Shelly. So the actors are left to recite overly wordy lines that feel unnatural. With seasoned romantic-comedic actors like Ryan and Hutton and the comedic background of director Cheryl Hines, they could have come up with more witty or realistic-sounding improvisations.

The Hitchcockian ending of the film is cute, (though in my personal opinion, a bit predictable) but it is too little, too late as the audience is already bored and waiting for things to wrap up. Overall, SERIOUS MOONLIGHT is conceptually brilliant but fails to deliver.