GOING ALL THE WAY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
"Why was I born; why am I living?" says the song in GOING ALL THE WAY. As the scrawny serviceman, Sonny Burns, coming back to civilian life in the Midwest in 1954, Jeremy Davies gives a convincing portrayal of someone who hasn't a clue as to his place in life.
Jill Clayburgh, whose only exceptional performance was in her Academy Award nominated role in AN UNMARRIED WOMAN, has been relegated to cliched roles of domineering mothers. Repeating a similar part to the one she played earlier this year in FOOLS RUSH IN, she is Sonny's mother Alma. Alma knows just what her little boy needs: a fresh plate of sandwiches brought to his room for dinner and his favorite breakfast -- a berry pie with pancake syrup all over it. As someone now in his mid-twenties, Sonny is repulsed by this behavior. Just the sight of his old room with its childish wallpaper causes him to vomit, which is admittedly my least favorite of all movie behaviors.
Davies steals the show with his sympathetic performance. If you were ever the outcast in school or had a friend who was, Sonny will undoubtedly bring back painful memories.
Sonny's new friend and old classmate Gunner Casselman is played by Ben Affleck, who has been wonderful in many roles, the last being the smart mouthed lead in CHASING AMY. Whereas Sonny was an accomplished but unappreciated photographer in high school and college, Gunner was a BMOC and star jock, who had one knockout girlfriend after another. Affleck, excellent at boisterous, talky parts, seems out of his league in this more subtle and introspective role. Gunner spends as much time admiring Sonny's talents as showing off his own.
In this film about the effects of sexuality on young people's lives, Lesley Ann Warren plays Gunner's sexually charged mother Nina. She dresses in provocative attire and looks and acts Gunner's age, although at 50 she is exactly twice his. The way she hangs on him, one might reasonably expect there might have been an incest subplot that was left on the cutting room floor.
Sonny's mother does not approve of his new fast and loose friend Gunner. "When you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas," she warns him. Her solution comes in the religious tracts and icons that fill her house. When these are not enough to show Sonny the way, she arranges for a beefy ex-con turned religious author to come and sit with Sonny. When the ex-con almost smashes him, Sonny informs him in no uncertain terms that, "I don't believe in God. I don't even like the guy."
Sonny spends most of his time worrying about sex. Although he has a perfectly willing and knockdown-dead gorgeous local girlfriend named Buddy Porter, he wants something more. (Using food metaphors, Gunner likens sexual monogamy to just eating peach pie all your life.) As Buddy, Amy Locane, last seen as the sexually precocious teen in the excellent but ignored CARRIED AWAY, gives a realistic portrayal of a woman as interested in sex as the guys but without the hang-ups.
The film's limitations are many. The script by Dan Wakefield, based on his book, too often skims the surface. Although the character of Sonny is fully developed and very well acted by Davies, the other characters need more depth. Davies, who stared in SPANKING THE MONKEY, gives such a compelling performance that he makes the picture.
GOING ALL THE WAY runs 1:10. It is rated R for sex, nudity, profanity, and adult themes, and would be fine for older and mature teenagers. I recommend the movie and give it ** 1/2.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: October 2, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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