Tagline: A love / hate comedy.
Serious Moonlight movie storyline. After she arrives at her country home for a romantic weekend getaway, things don’t go exactly as planned for high-powered Manhattan lawyer Louise (Meg Ryan). First, her husband of 13 years, Ian (Timothy Hutton), tells her that he’s leaving her for a younger woman (Kristen Bell).
Then, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon Ian finds himself held captive by an oddly cool Louise who explains that she won’t release him until he professes his love for her and commits to working on their marriage. And that’s when things REALLY start to go wrong. The unexpected arrival of an opportunistic young gardener (Justin Long) and Ian’s impatient mistress only serve to complicate the crisis even further, while somehow forcing Louise and Ian to reckon with their past and realistically deal with their future.
Serious Moonlight is a 2009 American black comedy film directed by Cheryl Hines and starring Kristen Bell, Justin Long, Meg Ryan, Timothy Hutton, Kimberlee Peterson, Andy Ostroy, Derek Carter, Bill Parks, Nathan Dean and Kylan James. It was released by Magnolia Pictures on 4 December 2009.
About the Film
All couples go through a rough patch or two – misunderstandings, distractions, temptations. Then there’s the weekend getaway for Louise and Ian (Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton), the couple in crisis imagined at the heart of Adrienne Shelly’s screenplay for SERIOUS MOONLIGHT. What begins with rose petals strewn in a path to the bedroom somehow ends up one bad argument later with Ian held captive and his patient wife determined to salvage their 13-year marriage.
Following the popular and critical success of the independent comedy Waitress, which was written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, her husband Andy Ostroy considered SERIOUS MOONLIGHT as an appropriate follow-up project. “I just felt that professionally, she was owed more than the success of Waitress,” Ostroy recalls today. “Adrienne had a lot of completed scripts, and was actively developing SERIOUS MOONLIGHT and looking for a producer. The script was already completed, ready to shoot, and I decided I would take the helm. It was really done as a labor of love to get her work out there.”
Like Waitress, SERIOUS MOONLIGHT examines the mundane lives of seemingly typical people through moments of poignant hilarity and awkward self-awareness. Louise, a lawyer from Manhattan deeply committed to both her husband and her career, finds her world suddenly turned upside-down when Ian confesses that he’s fallen in love with a much younger woman named Sara (Kristen Bell), and that he is planning on running away with her to Paris the following day. Although Louise has a very pleasant disposition, she’s also determined not to let her life slip away from her without a fight – hence, when the opportunity presents itself to take control of the situation, she does what any strong woman would do and seizes the chance to set the stage for a conversation on her terms.
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Serious Moonlight (2009)
Directed by: Cheryl Hines
Starring by: Kristen Bell, Justin Long, Meg Ryan, Timothy Hutton, Kimberlee Peterson, Andy Ostroy, Derek Carter, Bill Parks, Nathan Dean, Kylan James
Screenplay by: Adrienne Shelly
Production Design by: Cecil Gentry
Cinematography by: Nancy Schreiber
Film Editing by: Steven Rasch
Costume Design by: Ariyela Wald-Cohain
Set Decoration by: Shirley Starks
Art Direction by: Craig Pavilionis
Music by: Andrew Hollander
MPAA Rating: R for language and some threatening behavior.
Distributed by: Magnolia Pictures
Release Date: November 25, 2009
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