ONLY YOU
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey Jr., Bonnie Hunt, Joaquim de Almeida, Fisher Stevens. Screenplay: Diane Drake. Director: Norman Jewison.
Ingredients: one lost shoe found by a handsome suitor, a gypsy selling roses, a street corner saxophone player, a carriage ride, beautiful Italian scenery (including canal boats in Venice), the moon, the stars, and a version of the title song by Louie Armstrong. Oh, and a reference to ROMAN HOLIDAY. And a nice-but-uninspiring guy for the heroine to throw over. Have I forgotten anything? It doesn't appear that the makers of ONLY YOU have. It is packed to bursting with everything that a Hollywood romance is supposed to have--except any connection between its stars. As a result, its agonizing cuteness becomes all the more agonizing, and the hole at its center positively gapes.
ONLY YOU stars Marisa Tomei as Faith Corvatch, a lifelong romantic who was told as an adolescent (by a Ouija board and a fortune teller) that she is destined to marry someone named Damon Bradley. Fourteen years later, she is preparing to marry someone *not* named Damon Bradley, a podiatrist named Dwayne. All that changes when Faith gets a call from an old friend of Dwayne's named ... Damon Bradley. With best friend Kathy (Bonnie Hunt) in tow, Faith races off for Italy on the off chance that she might meet the man who is her destiny. Then she does meet a man (Robert Downey Jr.) who sweeps her off her feet and re-introduces her to romance--only his name may or may not actually be Damon Bradley.
There is a trend which has developed in film romances in the last couple of years (including SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE and, to a certain extent, FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL) which has made me wary of them even before they appear. They are no longer about romances which blossom between real people in the course of actual interaction; instead, they are the worst kind of pop fairy tales, selling infatuation with a romanticized ideal as true love. Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. end up together (and please, no one try to tell me that I'm spoiling anything by revealing that fact) because that's the way it has to end. Not because these characters learn anything about each other that would make them want to learn more, and not because they seem right for each other. For most of the film, their relationship is based on self-delusion and lies. However, since it's all accompanied by carriage rides and flowers and beautiful Italian scenery, it passes for a love story. And that's fairly sad.
Equally sad is that there is a supporting story to ONLY YOU which is infinitely more interesting and touching, and might have made for a movie I would truly have enjoyed. Bonnie Hunt gives a winning performance as Kathy, a woman whose marriage to Faith's loutish brother Larry (Fisher Stevens) has left her wounded and bitter. "I married a liar," she says at one point. "Why? Because I married a man." Her tentative romance with a smooth-talking Italian (Joaquim de Almeida of CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER) is the one thing in ONLY YOU which rings true, and watching her struggle with her feelings about her marriage is genuinely affecting. Unfortunately, the story isn't about Kathy, and I just didn't care about Faith's quest for Damon.
Individually, as performers, I generally like Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. Both usually appear very natural on screen, and Downey in particular shows the potential to be a solid, charming romantic leading man. In ONLY YOU, however, his lovable rascal is completely one-dimensional, and the script's attempts to justify his behavior don't sell. Tomei has it even worse, directed by Norman Jewison to a teeth-aching level of adorableness, but that's just indicative of how everything in ONLY YOU is pitched: lay on the syrupy score, emphasize Sven Nykvist's cinematography, throw in romantic signifiers by the dozen. What it all adds up to is a film so mechanical you can almost hear the gears grinding.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Roman holidays: 4.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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