The Man in the Moon

The Man in the Moon is a 1991 film about a fourteen-year-old girl who falls in love with a boy three years her senior. As their relationship begins to develop, however, he becomes more attracted to her older sister.
 * Directed by Robert Mulligan. Written by Jenny Wingfield.

Remember when you couldn't wait for your life to begin... and then, one day, it did?(taglines)

Dani Trant

 * Maureen, have you ever liked somebody so much, it almost made you sick?
 * When two people really care about each other, they try to understand things. Even when it's hard.

Dialogue

 * Dani: I love Elvis so much.
 * Maureen: You love everybody so much.
 * Dani: I do not.
 * Maureen: You do, too.
 * Dani: No I don't.
 * Maureen: Okay, you don't.
 * Dani: Well, I don't. Maureen, sometimes you make me feel like such a baby.
 * Maureen: You are a baby.
 * Dani: I wish I could be just like you.
 * Maureen: Don't talk silly.
 * Dani: It's not silly. You're the smartest girl in school, you're so pretty it hurts - the boys fall all over themselves when you walk down the street. And I'm just a lump.


 * Matthew: What time you got?
 * Billy: 6:13.
 * Matthew: You're responsible for my daughter for the next 5 hours and 7 minutes.
 * Billy: Yes sir, Mr. Trant. You don't have a thing to worry about.
 * Matthew: Then neither will you.


 * Court: You know you don't have to come along.
 * Dani: Are you sure you can find your way, it's an awful big town.
 * Court: Are you always in the habit of going where you're not wanted or is this a new thing with you?
 * Dani: Are you always this nice to people you just met or are you practicin' up to be a horse's butt?


 * Court: Have you ever been kissed before?
 * Dani: Sure. Lots of times.
 * Court: Yeah... I'll bet. Well you just almost got yourself more than kissed, little girl.
 * Dani: I'm not a little girl.
 * Court: You are too Dani! You're a little girl and you don't know what you're doing.


 * Dani: I want you to be the first boy I ever kiss.
 * Court: I thought you'd been kissed "so many times."
 * [Long, awkward pause, then Court leans over and they kiss]
 * Court: How was that?
 * Dani: Perfect.


 * Dani: I wanna know you.
 * Court: You do know me.
 * Dani: I wanna know you more... I wanna know you all I can.
 * Court: What do you wanna know?
 * Dani: I wanna know... your hopes.
 * Court: Well... I hope your boobs will get bigger and your butt will fill out.


 * Matthew: [about Dani] She's getting too big to be running around wild as a jack rabbit.
 * Abigail: It used to be she was too little, and now she's too big. I guess she passed up just right when nobody was lookin'.


 * Dani: I love you, Court.
 * Court: Don't! Don't love me now. When things are so mixed up.


 * Court: Well maybe if you were just a little bit older, you could understand.
 * Dani: If I were just a little older, I could do everything. Couldn't I, Court?


 * Matthew: Now, Dani, you and Maureen are gonna be sisters for a long time. Maureen's been good to you all your days. Remember that.
 * Dani: Don't ask me to forgive her.
 * Matthew: You got a right to be upset. You got a right to be hurt.
 * Dani: You don't know what she did.
 * Matthew: I know enough. But I also know that Maureen's hurting real bad...as much as you...maybe even more. And if you get so involved in your own pain that you can't see when someone else is hurting, you might as well crawl into a hole and pull the dirt right in on top of you 'cause you'll never be any good to yourself...or to anyone else.


 * Dani: I'm afraid nothing's ever gonna make sense again.
 * Maureen: Maybe life's not supposed to make sense.
 * Dani: Doesn't that scare you?
 * Maureen: Yes.
 * Dani: I wish we could still talk to the Man in the Moon. Don't you?
 * Maureen: It would be nice.
 * Dani: Will we always talk like this?
 * Maureen: Always.

About The Man in the Moon

 * When this movie was over, I sat quietly for a moment so that I could feel the arc of its story being completed in my mind. They had done it: They had found a way all the way from the beginning to the end of this material, which is so fraught with peril, and never stepped wrong, not even at the end, when everything could have come tumbling down. “The Man in the Moon” is a wonderful movie, but it is more than that, it is a victory of tone and mood. It is like a poem.
 * Roger Ebert, Review (October 4, 1991)

Cast

 * Sam Waterston - Matthew Trant
 * Tess Harper - Abigail Trant
 * Gail Strickland - Marie Foster
 * Reese Witherspoon - Danielle 'Dani' Trant
 * Jason London - Court Foster
 * Emily Warfield - Maureen Trant
 * Bentley Mitchum - Billy Sanders
 * Ernie Lively - Will Sanders
 * Dennis Letts - Doc White
 * Earleen Bergeron - Eileen Sanders
 * Anna Chappell - Mrs. Taylor
 * Brandi and Sandi Smith - Missy Trant
 * Derek and Spencer Ball - Foster Twins