A nostalgic recollection of Fifties America by way of the already nostalgic Seventies novel of Dan Wakefield. It gets through its best material early: the Madison Avenue-styled illustrations of a Dream America, to the accompaniment of "A White Sport Coat," behind the credits. (The Marty Robbins tune sets the period as three years later than the actual one, 1954.) The ham-handed direction of Mark Pellington, however, dashes all hopes within a quarter of an hour, plenty of time for an Army vet to be smothered in welcome-home smooches from his mother, for the smooches to be brusquely broken up by his father ("We're in a no-parking zone, folks"), for the gift of a puppy to be pushed into his face through a wide-angle lens, and for him to make it to the bathroom, hurried along thereto with pixillation, to throw up. Ben Affleck does well in the more interesting of the two main roles, as the combat-tested soldier and former high-school jock who finds himself changing from an "outer-directed guy" into an "inner-directed." (He has read The Lonely Crowd, whether that was chicken or egg.) But Jeremy Davies, as the inexperienced home-front nerd, is so monotonously, so maddeningly mumbly and gulpy that it's hard to see what he has to offer in the way of companionship. Amy Locane, Rachel Weisz, Lesley Ann Warren, Jill Clayburgh. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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