You have to give Moon Point credit for being different. The new Canadian movie is the story of a 24-year-old dreamer who hits the restart button, abandoning the suburbs and a family of complainers for a trip with a pal to find a girl he loved when he was 10.
Nothing new about a Trans-Canada film journey, except the buddies here – Darryl and Femur – are goin’ down the road in a golf cart. Neither can drive, although Femur, a paraplegic bound for MIT, has pimped his ride so it can do 10 on the open road.
The boys’ first bump on the road is an ice-cream vendor who also happens to be a demonic murderer. Then they meet an alcoholic banana on the way to an AA costume party.
Of course, a girl comes along for a ride – Kristin, an attractive woman whose car and boyfriend experience engine trouble at exactly the same time. Off they all go to Moon Point to find salvation on the set of a troubled horror flick. The star, Darryl’s love interest (Kristen Gustoskie), quits because she won’t do nudity.
All of that would seem a wonderful premise for a screwball Canadian romantic comedy. Especially when you throw in that the secondary cast includes Jayne Eastwood (Goin’ Down the Road) and Art Hindle (Face Off) as the banana lush.
For their parts, Darryl (Nick McKinlay), Femur (Kyle Mac) and Kristin (Paula Brancati) are quite okay in the lead roles. Indeed, Brancati exhibits a winning sass as the female intruder who gets the boys thinking.
The production is also often fun to look at. There is a lovely credit sequence that nicely pins the storyline to the romcom genre – a hand looking for discarded valentines in a waste-paper basket. And the film includes one astonishing comic moment where a serial murderer brings his quarry home, only to be greeted by a surprise party from his wife.
Unfortunately, Moon Point’s fresh, interesting ideas are compromised by an often mean and shallow script. Although ingenious, screenwriters Robert Lazar and Elke Town strain at writing natural dialogue, especially when they venture from the main characters. The opening sequence, styled after Benjamin’s pool party in The Graduate, is populated by gargoyle suburban matrons and creepy jerk in-laws.
They’re stupid and unattractive in a way that real mothers and cousins, even mean and selfish ones, seldom are. The filmmakers simply aren’t interested in incidental characters, always a mistake in a social comedy. Nor are they even curious enough about their own rumpled, dead-end heroes.
Moon Point pushes Darryl, Femur and Kristin around without letting them stop and get to know each other. The film contains too few gratifying personal encounters. Everyone gets paired off at the end because that’s what is supposed to happen in romantic comedies that show up in theatres close to Valentine’s Day.
But the romances offered up here are schematic, not credible in the least. Moon Point will send customers from the theatre scratching their heads instead of holding hands.
Special to The Globe and Mail
Moon Point
- Directed by Sean Cisterna
- Written by Robert Lazar
- Starring: Nick McKinlay, Kyle Mac, Paula Brancati, Art Hindle and Jayne Eastwood
- Classification: 14A
- 2 stars
