Apparently, the perfect prescription for a midlife crisis is to engage in a tomato fight, have an extramarital affair, and allow your unsupervised child to play with fireworks. That seems to be the message of Tom DiCillo's follow-up to the considerably superior Living In Oblivion. John Turturro stars as an uptight suburbanite electrical engineer who, given a few days off when a construction project falls through, goes in search of a childhood vacation spot. He finds it in ruins, but soon hooks up with a free-spirited kid named Kid (Sam Rockwell), who forces Turturro to enjoy himself while staying at Rockwell's open-air home somewhere in the forgotten parts of what appears to be Florida. What follows is a backwoods variation on After Hours, as Turturro encounters an assortment of oddball characters who inadvertently teach him a thing or two. Box Of Moonlight is far from unpleasant to watch, but it doesn't really add up to much. It plays as more than a little bit condescending toward its sub-white-collar characters, who, free from the burdens of education and responsibility, are able to enjoy the simple life and all those predictable, unrealistic, clichéd etceteras. Turturro and Rockwell make a nice pair, and DiCillo has made a film that's not as dismissable as it would be in lesser hands, but overall it's pretty disappointing.
Keep scrolling for more great stories from The A.V. Club.