Philadelphia Film Festival 2009

After 13 years of marriage, Ian (Timothy Hutton) is leaving his wife Louise (Meg Ryan), a Manhattan barracuda attorney used to litigating everything. Scattering rose petals on the country house bed in anticipation of the arrival of his new girly-girlfriend, Sara (Kristen Bell), Ian is shocked to see Louise at the bedroom door. Louise is so shocked herself by his see-ya note to her that she knocks him out –bing!--with a flying vase. When Ian wakes up, he’s duct taped to a chair. Louise means to talk some sense into Ian’s idiot male brain. Only there are some things you just can’t litigate. Before this is over, Ian will move upstairs even as he moves down the dignity scale by waking up again, this time duct taped to a toilet. What ensues is a three ring circus that starts out as a Mexican standoff, then takes a left into Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf territory, and finally veers right into Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs and the defense of the family—even if it’s a family neither party wants any part of anymore. Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines is the only actress-turned director who could pull this nutty dramedy off, and it’s her debut film, too. The late Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered in her New York City office just days after her film Waitress was accepted at the 2007 Sundance film festival, wrote the script for Serious Moonlight. As the lawyer-wife, Ryan is totally supple, an ace comedienne juggling outrage, idiocy, and deception with adroitness. And Tim Hutton shows he can act funny, with both hands tied behind his back.—Harlan Jacobson