EDEN

EDEN Dylan Walsh, Joanna Going, Sean Patrick Flanery (1998, BMG Independents, R, $97.99) ''Let your spirits soar,'' suggests the tag line for this earnest drama about a 1965 housewife (Going), contending with both a patronizing husband (Walsh) and multiple sclerosis, who discovers astral projection. You may find soaring a bit tricky, however, with the millstone of the picture's clunky symbolism around your neck. The title is perhaps forgivable (the setting is a prep school called Mount Eden), but when Going's plight is underlined with a subplot in which her kids find a bird with a broken wing -- complete with lengthy discussions about whether to keep it in a cage -- you're apt to want to force-feed writer-director Howard Goldberg fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Seriously Moth-Eaten Cliches. D

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