IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Nicolas Cage plays an honest cop
who agrees to share a lottery ticket with a waitress,
then finds himself sharing four million dollars. This is
a light summer love story that also makes some comment on
the selfish and unselfish uses of good fortune. Cage and
Bridget Fonda make a likable couple. Rating: high +1 (-4
to +4)
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is claimed to be based on fact both internally and in the publicity. In actual fact, just about none of it is true, but the basic situation of a policeman sharing a lottery ticket as a tip and then splitting the payoff when the ticket actually wins. Jane Anderson's screenplay takes that situation as a springboard to tell a fable about greed and unselfishness. Surprisingly, the invented story is not all that far from credibility.
Charlie Lang (played by Nicolas Cage) is a good, honest cop who lives the kind of life that a good honest cop can expect to live. He has a one-bedroom apartment, a lot of aggravation, and a dissatisfied wife Muriel (Rosie Perez) who is getting ready to give up on Charlie and look for something new. One day Charlie buys a lottery ticket. Then getting a cup of coffee he finds he does not have money for a tip so promises to split any lottery winnings with his waitress, Yvonne Biasi (Bridget Fonda). When the ticket wins to the tune of four million dollars Charlie's wife Muriel wants Charlie to keep all the money for themselves. Charlie insists repeatedly that a promise is a promise and splits the money with Yvonne.
As Charlie discovers, winning the lottery completely changes who you are and how people relate to you. Charlie and Yvonne find kindred spirits in each other, each wanting to spend much of the money unselfishly. They also begin getting interested in each other. Muriel, on the other hand, wants to enjoy every dollar spending on herself. What is more, she wants all four million. What results is neither entirely expected or unrealistic. On top of this is a rather pleasant love story in which Cage and Fonda work very well together on the screen.
And Fonda and Cage are something of a surprise as a screen couple. Cage has overcome the goopy kid roles he has played in the past and carries the film reasonably well as a leading man. He has, of course, worked with director Andrew Bergman before in HONEYMOON IN VEGAS. Fonda is captivating with a winning smile and a more winning acting talent. Slightly misjudged is Rosie Perez whose grating voice was somehow an asset when she played the traumatized plane passenger in FEARLESS, but here, playing a human cockroach, she seems just insufferable on the screen. Also disappointing is the limiting of Stanley Tucci to three scenes as Yvonne's wandering husband. Tucci is a rubber-faced actor who proved he had a great deal of comic potential as Alec Baldwin's best friend in PRELUDE TO A KISS.
Anderson's screenplay has a lot of what was good in older Frank Capra films. Unfortunately Capra films were far from perfect and an unrealistic turn of events toward the end of the film is lifted straight from a Frank Capra film. What is oddly missing is the attention to well-observed character development that one would find in a Capra film. It is odd because Anderson proved she was good at creating charactersin THE POSITIVELY TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE ALLEGED TEXAS CHEERLEADER- MURDERING MOM for HBO. Here, instead of developing the minor characters the screenwriter actually seemed to be working with a checklist to make sure a wide variety of ethnic minorities were represented in the film. Also the telling of the story with a narrator seems to be a false move on the part of the author.
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is not a great film, but it is an enjoyable love story and a pleasant change from much gun-blazing summer entertainment available in the theaters right now. I would give it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
.
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