A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Steve Martin, Gabriel Byrne, Catherine O'Hara, Laura Linney, Stephen Baldwin, Alana Austin. Screenplay: Steve Martin. Director: Gillies MacKinnon.
Give this to Steve Martin: he has an eye for the classics. In 1987, he updated "Cyrano de Bergerac" into the gentle romantic comedy ROXANNE; this year, he has turned George Eliot's SILAS MARNER into A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE. It would appear, however, that Martin did not learn the lesson of ROXANNE's success. His script for ROXANNE retained only the most basic plot elements, while ditching the tragedy. With A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE, he has been perhaps too faithful, letting a deliberate exposition and somber tone dull a potentially appealing redemption tale.
Martin stars as Michael McCann, a one-time schoolteacher who retreats into seclusion and bitterness in a small Virginia town after his wife betrays him. Five years later, McCann's life takes another unexpected twist when an infant girl wanders into his home. The child's mother, a heroin addict, has died of an overdose; her father, Congressional candidate John Newland (Gabriel Byrne), is unwilling to take the political risk of claiming his illegitimate daughter. Instead, Newland arranges it so that McCann can raise the girl, who is named Mathilda. Fatherhood coaxes McCann out of his shell, and he begins to live life again. However, as the years pass, Newland begins to regret his decision, and tries to insinuate himself back into her life.
There is something jarring about watching a film constructed like a 19th century novel set in the present day. A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE takes its own sweet time establishing its plot and characters, and for the first half hour it seems muted to the point of inaudibility, and very dark in its tone. But curiously, the one thing missing from this overlong first act is any sense of who Michael McCann really is. He is viewed mostly through the reactions of townspeople, or filmed in shadow hoarding his precious gold coins. I felt that I knew more about characters like Newland's wayward brother (Stephen Baldwin) than the man whose transformation is to provide the centerpiece for the film.
To be fair to Steve Martin the screenwriter, Steve Martin the actor may not have been the best choice for this role. For the past couple of years, in such films as LEAP OF FAITH, Martin has been trying to establish himself as a legitimate dramatic actor, and while he is always an appealing presence, he just doesn't look comfortable in scenes which require serious emotion. His standard "repressed emotion" take is on frequent display in A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE, and it usually just makes him look slightly constipated. At those moments, I just couldn't lose myself in the pre-Mathilda McCann.
There is much more to enjoy in the second act of SIMPLE TWIST. Martin is very good as the nervous novice father, and his scenes with the various child actors playing Mathilda are generally quite charming. Alana Austin gets the most screen time as the 11-year-old Mathilda, and she has an easy chemistry with Martin (her sister Alyssa plays the 5-year-old Mathilda). Also appealing are the performances of Catherine O'Hara as a quirky antique shop owner who befriends McCann (and, in a pleasant surprise, *doesn't* become his romantic interest), and Gabriel Byrne, slipping in and out of a Virginia accent but providing some nice shading for a part that could have been a stock villain.
Unfortunately, the conclusion of A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE becomes a predictable and overlong custody battle, complete with courtroom scenes and a hissable lawyer. The more melodramatic A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE became--and ironically, the more like its source material-- the less effective it was as a film. As nicely as the bonding between father and daughter was portrayed, it couldn't compensate for the plodding story on either end of it.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 twists of fate: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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