Moonlight Mile
Following the murder of Diana Floss (Careena Melia) in a restaurant shooting in Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1973, her fiancé Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal) elects to stay with her parents. Her father Ben Floss (Dustin Hoffman) is a realtor whose business partner has recently left. Ben and Joe go into business as Floss & Son, as this was their plan before Diana's death. Joe goes to the post office to retrieve all the invitations that had been sent out for his and Diana's wedding, and with the help of Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo) he retrieves seventy four of seventy five. She finds the last invitation and takes it to his house later that night. He drops her off at a local bar, and returns home, despite her inviting him in for a drink. Joe and Ben attend a local property fair, and Ben pitches the idea of redeveloping a block in the town to developer Mike Mulcahey (Dabney Coleman). Mulcahey agrees, but they need to get all the tenants to agree.
Diana's friends come round to look through her possessions, much to the consternation of her mother Jojo (Susan Sarandon). They then take Joe out for a drink at the same bar Bertie went into the previous night. Joe puts "Moonlight Mile" on the jukebox and Bertie dances with him, to jealous looks from Diana's friends. Joe convinces Ben to let him talk to the bar's owner to convince them to sell. He asks the bartender who owns the bar, but the bartender does not give him the information. Feeling trapped at the Floss home, Joe goes to see Bertie and they sleep together. He leaves early the next morning.
Ben is frustrated at the lack of progress and goes to the bar to see the owner, where he meets Bertie and tells her about Diana. Bertie finds Joe and confronts him; he confesses to her that he had split up with Diana three days before she was killed. Bertie tells Joe about her boyfriend, the owner of the bar, who is lost in Vietnam. Joe goes to dinner at the Mulcahey's, where Mike's wife rudely presumes aloud that she thought Joe was not still tied up with thoughts of his fiancee's murder. Joe states that this is not the case, completely upsetting the mood at the dinner table. This causes Mike to call Ben and call off the deal. The family attends the trial of Diana's murderer. However the murderer's wife elicits sympathy from the jury, and the prosecutor, Mona Camp (Holly Hunter), asks Joe to testify and help the jury gain sympathy for Diana. While on the witness stand, Joe confesses that he and Diana had broken up prior to her death, and had not told her parents. Ben and Jojo are happy with the confession and gain closure. Joe symbolically writes 75 letters expressing his newfound clarity about what course his life ought to take and places them in mailboxes around town, hoping that one will get to Bertie.
Ben closes the shop, Jojo resumes her writing career, Bertie sells the bar, and she and Joe leave town.
comedy, murder