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Director Tony Goldwyn’s A Walk on the Moon was a surprisingly powerful film that almost no one saw when it was released. Set in the summer of 1969, when the momentous events of the Apollo astronauts’ moonwalk and the Woodstock music festival occurred, the film focuses on the family of Marty and Pearl Kantrowitz’s summer vacation to the family campgrounds in the Catskills. Told from a uniquely female perspective, with screenplay by Pamela Gray, the film explores the problems that occur when Pearl, an otherwise dutiful young New York housewife, strays and has an affair with a handsome blouse salesman who frequents the campsite, selling his wares.

Three years before playing a similar role in her Oscar-nominated Unfaithful, Diane Lane is sympathetic and sensually appealing as the frustrated Pearl, who married young after her first sexual experience and dedicated her life to her family. Liev Schreiber plays Marty, a working-class television repairman who skipped college to support his family and mostly thrives on his dedication to his job. Viggo Mortensen is Walker Jerome, the “blouse man,” the hippie-like guy who makes Pearl feel special and awakens her to feelings she hasn’t had with her husband for years. Anna Paquin is Alison, the daughter who is coming of age during this summer, tempted to do what her mom secretly achieves.

With a fine cast, attention to period detail and an insightful, complex script, Goldwyn and Gray keep the story from ever falling into cheap melodrama. The film is especially effective when Pearl explains the reasons for her affair to individual family members. Somewhat reluctantly to Marty, she reveals his lack of understanding: “Somewhere along the line, I disappeared.” To Alison, she tearfully admits, “Sometimes it’s easier to be different with a different person.” Never is Pearl simply judged as a cheat, a cheap tramp or worse.