There’s a delicate balance happening in Going All the Way. It’s the 1950’s —a time remembered by most Americans for its innocence. Yet, Sonny Burns (Davies) and his newfound friend Gunner Casselman (Affleck) are anything but innocent. They meet on the train, returning home to Indianapolis after serving in the Korean War. Their minds, like young men of any era, are on the women that surround them (Weisz, McGowan, and Locane). Yet, each has his own idealism and looks forward to a better life.

This balance is best illustrated in Sonny's bedroom. His headboard is still adorned with his baseball trading cards, but his old board game boxes hide his stash of skin magazines. He’s shy, sensitive, and wants to be a writer. He also wants to get laid. Badly. Gunner is just the friend to help him achieve that goal. But the film has deeper concerns.

Each young man is trying to find his place in a new world - a world on the threshold of transforming from the “innocent” 1950’s to the tumultuous 1960’s. Director Mark Pellington, working with a screenplay by Dan Wakefield adapted from his own novel, suggests that that transformation occurred on a personal level first, even in young men in Indianapolis. As those young people reached out to the world to change it, an entire society would follow them.

When shooting began on this film in and around Indianapolis in 1996, people knew veterans Lesley Ann Warren and Jill Clayburgh. Each had earned Oscar nominations. Few had any idea who Jeremy Davies, Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz, and Rose McGowan were.

The Indianapolis International Film Festival is pleased to play host to a 10th Anniversary Celebration of this charming independent
film that went from the streets of Indianapolis, to the slopes of Sundance, to the big screen, eventually leading its young cast to stardom. And now – it’s come home.

Immediately following the screening the 2007 Indianapolis International Film Festival will host an anniversary celebration of the film with members of the cast and crew in attendance and music provided by Luke Austin Daugherty and Tim Brickley.