Cinema: Growing Boys

RACING WITH THE MOON Directed by Richard Benjamin Screenplay by Steven Kloves World War II is going on out there, and in a matter of weeks Hopper (Sean Penn) and Nicky (Nicolas Cage) will report for enlistment. But that leaves time enough for them to punctuate their broody adolescent walks with leaps onto fast-moving freight trains, for Hopper to fall in love with Caddie (Elizabeth McGovern) and for Nicky to get his girl friend Sally (Suzanne Adkinson) “in trouble.” These characters, and their problems, are the basic banalities of books and movies that insist on taking adolescence as seriously as adolescents do. Director Benjamin has found some picturesque locations, so his picture looks nice; the period details are no more than usually selfconscious, and the actors are all agreeable. But the film’s soft false nostalgia is no substitute for liveliness of spirit and freshness of insight.

—R.S.