Racing with the Moon

In the Christmas of 1942, in Point Muir, California, the seventeen years-old Henry "Hopper" Nash (Sean Penn) is the best friend of the reckless Nicky (Nicolas Cage), who dates the local Sally Kaiser (Suzanne Adkinson). Henry and Nicky have enlisted themselves in the U.S. Marines and they are waiting to be summoned to travel very soon.

When Henry sees the gorgeous Caddie Winger (Elizabeth McGovern), he has a crush on her and follows Caddie to find where she lives. He discovers that her address is a fancy manor on the top of the hill and Henry believes she is a wealthy teenager while she is actually the daughter of the maid.

Sooner Caddie and Henry date each other and they fall in love with each other. Meanwhile Sally gets pregnant and Nicky needs a large amount for an abortion. They try to raise the money and when Nicky is desperate, he takes an attitude that will test his friendship with Henry.

"Racing with the Moon" is a sensitive and wonderful coming of age story. This film is the second feature of Richard Benjamin that shows an excellent work of direction giving the right doses of drama, romance and humor to the story.

Sean Peen and Nicholas Cage give credibility to their irresponsible characters and the lovely Elizabeth McGovern is so beautiful that mesmerizes when the camera shows her beautiful face and eyes. The costumes and art direction are also fantastic and only yesterday I saw this film for the first time on DVD. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Adeus à Inocência" ("Farewell to the Innocence")

Unlike most Hollywood movies that must be pigeonholed into categories--comedy, drama, romance--this movie dared to be all of these. And it dared to be low-key, without large, manufactured tragedies or plot hooks. Rather, it had the elegiac mood and idiosyncratic details of a fine short story, with its characters neither good nor bad but human, their lives honestly and touchingly observed by a sensitive screenwriter and director.

Saw it in 85 on video with my then girlfriend and another couple, we 18 yr old guys were like chick flick? Great. And as it turned out it was great, the Characters were all flawed and a bit overacted but that was ok, it was believable and a window into another time, that maybe we didn't understand or agree with it being the party 80s and all. But it was still clean fun and nostalgic in a way to young people who were basically watching their grandparents lives a few decades earlier. A few things still stand out. The pool hall scene, the necklace, and McGovern and Penn at the end. Loved her in Once Upon A Time In America and him since At Close Range with Ronnie Walken and Bad Boys with Clancy Brown and Ally Sheedy (aka weird dandruff girl in The Breakfast Club) 4 great movies of the time. Recommend watching Racing and all the other movies I have referenced in this remembrance if not a revue.

Coming-of-age piece set in small town America during WWII. Sean Penn has seldom been so youthfully exuberant and amiable playing a young working-class man about to go off to war, finding love for the first time with a sweet lass he presumes is wealthy ("a Gatsby girl"). Richard Benjamin's direction is sensitive and breezy, and Elizabeth McGovern is a good romantic match for Penn (though sometimes she talks down to him, like a big sister might). Nicolas Cage is also fine as Sean's goof-off buddy, yet the slim screenplay hasn't enough meat on its bones and the middle portion of the film goes around in circles. The period flavor has been captured with non-showy flair, and Penn's exceptional performance is winning, making the film a nearly-satisfying nostalgic drama. *** from ****

I've always viewed Richard Benjamin as a sensitive, honest filmmaker. Sure, he's made some less-than-great films, but his directorial debut, `My Favorite Year' may be about the funniest film ever made.

Racing with the Moon--the boy, his friend, and the girl--a small town in the Midwest in 1942 and a few weeks before the young men are to be inducted in the service. Their lives will be changed unequivocally, and they will no longer be boys. This is all the time they have left to enjoy the freedom, the carefree wonderment that is youth.

Stevn Kloves first produced script (later The Fabulous Baker Boys) is right on target with smart roles for three young stars. Sean Penn had Taps, and Fast Times behind him, and was his career was flourishing, Nick Cage had done Valley Girl, and Birdy, but would languish for ten more years, before achieving stardom, and Elizabeth McGovern, who's wonderful as Caddie Winger, is still waiting her just recognition.

Benjamin was born and raised in New York City, but his age is appropriate to our main characters. I'm sure he smiled, over and over as he recalled his own youth. His heart is in Racing with the Moon, and its worth your time, to go back for a moment, and enjoy those times.