ONE FINE DAY
1/2
Dr T. White
Director: Michael Hoffman Screenplay: Terrel Seltzer and Ellen Simon
Producer:Via Rosa Productions / Fox 2000 Pictures
Running Time: Approx. 108 minutes.
Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, George Clooney, Mae Whitman, Alex Linz
Rating: ***1/2 out of *****
OK, I admit I had a bad attitude about this film from the start. A romantic comedy about the trials and tribulations of single working parents? With a couple of incredibly cute kids thrown in for good measure? Yuck.
But it's not really too bad. It has a lot working against it, for me at least. In addition to the above, it is typical of a lot of recent movies in that it is really just a glorified made-for-TV movie, but longer and with bigger stars, and you have to pay to see it. It does win you over, though, even if it is painfully predictable.
Just think about it: Two single parents, with their cute kids, are thrown together due to a missed field trip. Through a day of near disasters, they cont inually meet, get in one another's way, cause trouble for one another, and generally insult one another at every opportunity. In fact, they hate each other so much that we know that they are, or soon will be, in love. The only people who hate each other more than lovers are married couples.
So this film is predictable, just as the screwball comedies of the classical Hollywood cinema were predictable (and the screwball genre is obviously Hoffman's model for this film). Will they get fired from their yuppie jobs? Will they make the big soccer game that is so important to their kids? Will Pfeiffer realize what a jerk her ex-husband, a drummer for Bruce Springsteen, really is (aren't they all?)? Will they finally kiss? Well, what do you expect?
But there is a certain amount of satisfaction in having our expectations fulfilled, especially when it is done with as much humour, along with a lack of sticky sentimentality, as it is in this film. Pfeiffer and Clooney have a certain chemistry together that is surprisingly charming, and the kids are neither shoved into the background nor allowed to steal the show.
One word of caution, though. This film is being billed in some places as a "family" movie. Don't let that stop you. However, I think most kids, especially boys, would be pretty bored by this move. After all, nobody gets killed and there are no explosions.
All in all, a good, non-offensive date movie.
Dr T. White teaches film studies at the Deppartment of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore. Check out his home p age.
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