My Perfect Moonlight Movie

It occurred to me recently that I watch movies the way I read books—alone.

True, I don’t watch every movie alone. Occasionally, I brave the theater (with its mouth-breathing popcorn crunchers and screen talkers—harsh and unkind, I know [and I’m known for being neither], but I genuinely love film and these people prevent me from fully entering its world). Sometimes I even take a move-watching companion, but mostly I watch movies in high-def on my Sony 55 inch HD TV in my study, reclined in my leather Stressless chair surrounded by my books.

Not only do I watch movies alone, but I mostly watch them late at night when the world is sleeping—a trend that goes back to my adolescence as the only night owl in a house of early birds.

There’s no better way to get caught up or swept away than alone with a good movie on the dark side of the witching hour. And some movies are just meant to be watched this way—“Frankie and Johnny” foremost among them. It’s a movie about loneliness in which the crises-ridden climax takes place on a long, lonely Saturday night as Clair de Lune, which is French for moonlight, plays in the background.

Garry Marshall (“Pretty Woman”) directs the screen adaptation of Terence McNally’s 1987 play “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” the story of an ex-con, short-order cook (Al Pacino) who drives a waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer) crazy with his intense courtship and professions of love. McNally adapted his two-character play for the screen and has expanded and rearranged his original story, adding a variety of settings and extending the narrative out over a longer period of time, while surrounding the lovers with additional characters. Kate Nelligan, another lonely waitress, and Nathan Lane, a gay neighbor, really standout.

This exchange between Cora (Kate Nelligan), a waitress standing at the order counter trying to get the old, overweight cook, Tino, to finish her customer’s food, is an example of the movie’s good-humored humor.


Cora: Tino! Who do ya gotta %$#@ to get a waffle here?

[Tino points at himself, Cora looks back at a customer]

Cora: Forget the waffle!


“Frankie and Johnny” is a sweet story—but not overly so. There’s a real sadness present, too. These are people whose lives haven’t turned out like they had hoped—for those among them with enough hope to even dare to hope. They are living lonely, little lives of service and subsistence, but doing so with humor and dignity, and the desire to make real connections.

As charming and funny as “Frankie and Johnny” is, it’s Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer’s performances that elevate it—him, as a middle-aged man so desperate, he’s needy and obnoxious, her, as a sad and wounded woman so gripped by fear she’s hardened and defensive. Here are two examples of their typical interactions:


Frankie: I feel like you’re too needy.

Johnny: Oh, come on. What does that mean?

Frankie: I just feel like you want everything I am. You know?

Johnny: Yes, I do. Why not?


Frankie: I’m retired from dating.

Johnny: What does that mean? Something happen to you as a kid? What happened?

Frankie: You know. Why is it that anytime a woman doesn’t want to get involved in a relationship, men think they were messed with as a kid. Wrong. They were messed with as a woman.

Each time I watch “Frankie and Johnny,” I feel the same way—connected, compassionate, happy and hopeful. The movie is not without sadness and darkness, loss and lovelessness, but it’s because, and not in spite, of these things, that an earned sense of hope appears, grace out of the grime and grittiness.

In addition to the witty writing, charm, sweetness, wonderful performances, “Frankie and Johnny” has a strong, complimentary soundtrack—the best piece of music by far, “Clair de Lune,” third movement of Suite bergamasque by Claude Debussy, a piano depiction of a Paul Verlaine poem.

When it begins to play on the small radio in her apartment, Frankie says, “That music is nice. Makes me think of grace.”

I can’t think of anything better than that, and as it turns out, it is a grace for Frankie and Johnny.

As Frankie once again begins to crawl back inside her distrust and defensiveness, Johnny calls the radio station’s DJ and asks him to play it again in hopes it will save their relationship.

Johnny: Now, there's a man and a woman. He's a cook. She's a waitress. Now, they meet and they don't connect. Only, she noticed him. He could feel it. And he noticed her. And they both knew it was going to happen. They made love, and for maybe one whole night, they forgot the 10 million things that make people think, I don't love this person, I don't like this person, I don't know this—instead, it was perfect, and they were perfect. And that's all there was to know about. Only now, she's beginning to forget all that, and pretty soon he's going to forget it, too.

Does he play it again? Does Frankie come out of her shell and risk love? Is it possible for two people to find later in life what was so excruciatingly elusive earlier when they were younger and more hopeful and more sure?
Watch the movie or read the play, preferably alone and late at night, and let the Clair de Lune shine its grace on you, as you witnesses to their story.