Parents' Guide to Going All the Way

In GOING ALL THE WAY, Sonny (Jeremy Davies) and Gunner (Ben Affleck) return from military service and struggle with how to live the rest of their lives. Both return to their Indiana hometown, Sonny the ever-invisible introvert who took pictures in high school and college, and Gunner the winning, outgoing jock who has been spurred by his war experiences to question all the biases and assumptions of his small-town upbringing. Neither look for jobs, both bridle at the restrictions and obligations of moving back in with their overbearing mothers, and both are looking for sex but confronting local girls who want to get married and have babies, two items not on their agendas. One mother is virulently anti-Semitic, reporting with comic certainty an outlandish untruth, that if Gunner marries the Jewish woman he's dating, her father will have to have sex with her before the wedding. She claims this wholly invented story is "common knowledge." Sonny's mom is a controlling, in-your-face religious zealot fearing for the soul of her atheist son. Sonny can't believe Gunner wants to hang out with him, go to bars together, take in museums, double date, and do their best to seduce women. Gunner even rejects his old jock pals for the company of the sycophantic and flattered Sonny. Sonny is awed by Gunner's confident yet earnest pursuit of attractive women, as when he spies Marty (Rachel Weisz) in a museum and introduces himself, leading to a relationship. Both men say they are seeking the "rare" combination of a woman they want to have sex with who they can also talk to, seemingly oblivious to what women may want to find in them.