Shoot the Moon

Still riding high on the momentum from her late-’70s ascent to mainstream stardom, Diane Keaton’s participation was crucial to securing studio support for Shoot the Moon, a searing, wise, brutally honest divorce drama, directed by Alan Parker from an original screenplay by Bo Goldman. In one of the most nuanced and underrated performances of her career, Keaton brings achingly specific emotional texture to the role of Faith Dunlap, a homemaker and mother of four young daughters, who faces the disintegration of her marriage to the magisterial but volatile George (Albert Finney) when his affair with a younger woman (Karen Allen) comes to light and the fractured family must contemplate an unplanned-for, unknowable future. Finney, newly returning to the big screen after a six-year hiatus, delivers an equally virtuosic performance with his unvarnished portrayal of an ambivalent family man struggling—and largely failing—to gain the upper hand over his own festering dissatisfaction and explosive temper.