“Fatal Distraction”
Meg Ryan plays Louise as cheerily and bubbly as she played Sally in “When Harry Met Sally. But Louise is a little bit psycho and in “Serious Moonlight” we find out what she might do if Harry left Sally.
Louise returns home to find her husband Ian (Timothy Hutton) preparing to leave her for Sara, a younger girl played by Kristen Bell. So, bang, flower pot to the head, and Ian awakens to find himself duct-taped to a toilet. Louise intends to keep him hostage until she can make him fall in love with her all over again.
This may sound like a “Fatal Attraction”-style thriller, but it has more laughs than a lot of comedies thanks to Meg Ryan being armed with charm. It’s one of the strangest and yet one of the funniest performances of Ryan’s career.
Although Hutton is very good as Ryan’s cheating husband, it would have been so much more fun if they had cast Billy Crystal in this role. It might have brought a sense of closure to anyone wondering if Harry and Sally are living happily ever after.
It feels as though the script was written to be a stage play because it contains only four main characters and basically never leaves the house. It would certainly work well if staged live. But the film doesn’t feel overly stagey. It has a freshness to it that remains attractive and entertaining throughout.
DVD Double Feature: “Serious Moonlight” was directed by Cheryl Hines from one of the last scripts written by Adrienne Shelly before she was murdered. Shelly’s previous film as writer and director was a brilliant little 2007 gem called “Waitress”. A wonderfully heartfelt comedy/drama about a girl baking pies in a small-town diner who becomes pregnant at a time when she wants to leave her no-good husband. Keri Russell is great in the lead role along with solid performances from Shelly, Andy Griffith and Cheryl Hines, the director of “Serious Moonlight”.
