This is a sweet, simple movie but yet with the strange Tom Dicillo stamp on it.John Turtturo is great as an uptight engineer on the verge of a mid-life crisis.Sam Rockwell as "The Kid" brings a great contrast to Turtturo's character and makes for a wonderful chemistry between the two.Dermot Mulroney and Catherine Keener are great at playing oddball characters. As a matter of fact the movie is loaded with day players with great one liners.Simply shot -- it works.The kind of movies à la "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" you'll fall in love with and will able to watch over and over and over. I never get tired of it.

John Turturro is a high-strung, anal-retentive electrical engineer who takes a detour on a business trip to find an old childhood lake and stumbles across a free-spirited guy (Sam Rockwell) who lives out in the boonies in half a house and sells ceramic lawn ornaments he steals from other people's lawns.This low-key exercise in quirk from writer-director Tom DeCillo (Living in Oblivion) boils down to "Seize the day," "Stop and smell the flowers," insert life-affirming platitude here. It's memorable chiefly for Turturro and especially Rockwell in his first real front-and-center role; DiCillo regulars Catherine Keener (second-billed in what amounts to a four-scene cameo) atypically cast as a shy fantasist and Dermot Mulroney as a burn-scarred mechanic liven up this underpopulated movie. Essentially a buddy movie for the indie-film crowd, but if you enjoy Turturro and Rockwell (I do) there are worse ways to spend 107 minutes.

John Turturro has no problem morphing into a midlife crisis family man. The problem is not with John Turturro, the problem is a free form script that goes nowhere. This movie is just plain boring, especially the redundant swimming hole scenes. Dermot Mulroney's character is far from believable. I mean living in the woods with your half-house entirely exposed to the elements is beyond ridiculous. Mulroney is unlikable and uninteresting. At 112 minutes the movie just plods along from one boring scene to the next. Bizarre is alright if the characters lead somewhere, but "Box of Moonlight", like a dog chasing it's tail goes nowhere. - MERK

Could be spoilers.I loved this film, but then again I liked the Real Blonde and Living in Oblivion. I think you have to be the right kind of person to watch this film, someone who likes to watch something that can really happen and how people find moments of epiphany in very simple acts and objects. Like the Box of Moon Light, life is what you make it, you can see the box full of something, or think catching moonlight in a box is stupid, but that means that are two kinds of folk out there.The characters are interesting as the main character tries to find a lake area he once had fun at as a child. He finds the lake polluted and as he leaves, he helps a guy with his car and then the adventure starts. The director has a way of making the normal seem quirky and I enjoy that.The video box on this one is a bit misleading though and says it is a romantic comedy. It is more of a road picture with much road. It is more about The Kid and Al's friendship than it is about Floaty and other romantic interests. Plus, I don't think Catherine Keener or Dermot Mulroney clocked in enough scene time to be on the box when Sam Rockwell wasn't. The movie, up to the last 10 minutes or so, is about Al and The Kid.Or yeah and I kept laughing myself silly seeing those huge flash cards Al's son has. He tells him to get some flash cards and they are HUGE. I was like, "wow, those are some insanely large cards you got there son!"Little things like that, the deer in the car with Al, Doris the key lady, etc, make the film very charming. Worth a few watches, as are all of DiCillo's movies. 9/10 for me.