It Could Happen to You is the kind of movie that they use to make in the 1950s with people like Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday. They were the kind of films that forced high-stakes conflicts between urban greed and small town virtues, corrupt sophistication challenged by naive integrity. These movies were always obvious and predictable, but they were also (sometimes) reasonably good.
That's not the case with It Could Happen to You, a contrived and underhanded excuse for a romantic comedy. Instead of a charming fable, the picture unloads an excessive amount of passive-aggressive hostility in a pathetic attempt to make its two lead characters sympathetic. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth in the process, as its feel-good mindset turns into an ugly display of sticky-fingered grasping.
The story is pure Capra-corn: a sweet-natured, virtuous cop (Nicolas Cage) finds himself short on change in a diner and promises the down-on-her-luck waitress (Bridget Fonda) half of his lottery ticket as a tip. Bingo! He wins the big money and the tip turns into a $2 million jackpot. Unfortunately, Cage's wife (Rosie Perez) is a pushy true believer in the fine art of conspicuous consumption — and she doesn't believe in sharing.
The first half of It Could Happen to You makes for a mildly amusing comedy, but Cage is more goofy than virtuous, and Fonda is too pinch-faced and superficially perky (and all at the same time) to be anything more than momentarily engaging. As for Perez, she's stuck with a character about as likable as Hitler at a bar mitzvah. Oddly enough, the movie would almost have worked if Perez and Fonda had been cast in each other's roles.
No comments:
Post a Comment