Going All the Way, a poignant coming of age story, covers much of the same ground as Catcher in the Rye or A Separate Peace, although it was first published by Dan Wakefield in 1970. Now, more than a generation later, and two generations removed from the time in which it's set, Going All the Way gets the big screen treatment, sporting indie film leads Jeremy Davies (Spanking the Monkey) as Sonny and Ben Affleck(Chasing Amy) as his cool pal Gunner.
Just back from the Korean war, the two as different as night and day strike up a friendship based on their war experience and need to break out of the '50s mold of conformity where you're sized up by what you do for a living. Sonny lives with his staid parents while Gunner returns home to his swinging divorced mom. After Gunner turns Sonny on to Beat writers, a stiff drink, and the ease of dating a truly beautiful woman, Sonny can never go back to the rigid reality his parents have in mind.
"The '60s were such a turbulent time that people tend to look back on the '50s with nostalgia because it's seen as a time when America was more innocent," Affleck told Public News in a phone interview, adding that "It's intimidating to try to figure out somebody from a different period."
In Wakefield's version of alienated youth the setting is middle class America. As directed by newcomer Mark Pellington, Going All the Way is rich in period detail along with witty observations of everyday life. Going All the Way also contains the funniest masturbation scene in a film since, well, Spanking the Monkey.
"In Chasing Amy, my character has things about him that made him less easy to get along with," continued Affleck. "Whereas with Gunner, that's his whole appeal. When I read it I thought, I'd like to know this guy, I'd like to be his friend. Everyone knows somebody in their peer group that they think has it all under control. I don't think those people really do, but they represent that to us."
Affleck may not be a household name but his movie career is on the rocket pad, with Going All the Way, Good Will Hunting, Dogma, and Armageddon all coming around the bend.
Affleck wrote Good Will Hunting with his School Ties co-star Matt Damon. "We had a smart agent who said it could be sold, and sold it with us attached to it. Then Gus Van Sant was interested and because Gus was interested, Robin Williams became interested -- we just finished shooting in June, and it comes out in December."
On Dogma, the next film from Kevin Smith, Affleck holds the highest hopes. "It's one of the best scripts I've read in a long, long, long time. It's funny and witty and hip, the way Kevin is, but it's really about trying to reconcile the tenets of Catholicism and papal infallibility with the complexities of the modern world," said Affleck, referring to the dogma declared by the Vatican Council in 1870 which states that the Pope is divinely protected from error when officially speaking about religion or morals.
Affleck plays Bruce Willis' protégé in Armageddon, an asteroid-on-a-collision-course-with-Earth flick that shoots for a week in October at NASA. "Suffice it to say, without giving away anything, heroics are performed," confides Affleck.
As to whether Going All the Way will awaken interest in the printed word, Affleck was less sure. "The beat era, it was all about reading and writing poetry. They would get into these novelists," said Affleck. "Now, movies have replaced that. People still read, but it's not like there're these hip new writers who're coming out with exciting stuff, making us see the world in different ways. Nowadays it's about the best seller list. The poet-philosopher has been replaced by the infomercial pitchman.
"Back then a literary movement had underground support," continued Affleck. "Today the only literary movement is the John Grisham movement. And that's just people buying his books; they're not espousing any philosophy based on what he wrote."
By: Michael Bergeron
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