Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [74]
In spite of having two major stars in its cast, One Fine Day never found its audience because moviegoers perceived it to be too sweet, and parents didn’t latch on to the fact that it’s a perfect film to share with their family.
In fact, this chaste romantic comedy is about bringing two fragmented families together.
George Clooney plays a brash, divorced New York City newspaper columnist who’s been saddled—at the last minute—with the responsibility of taking his five-year-old daughter Maggie (an adorable Mae Whitman) to school. Through a series of mix-ups with a schoolmate (Alex D. Linz) and her mom, a divorced architect played by Michelle Pfeiffer, the kids miss going on a field trip, and the already-bickering grown-ups are stuck taking care of them on a particularly hectic day in their careers.
The clever script sets up a believably antagonistic relationship between cocky Clooney and hardheaded Pfeiffer from the moment they meet, and fills the fast-moving story with enough detail over the course of the day that we don’t have a chance to dwell on why they can’t get along. By the time they finally have a chance to breathe, late in the day, and begin to soften, it’s persuasive and fun to watch.
All along, the two kids act just like real kids, and when, near the end of the film, they actually root for their parents to get together, it’s wonderfully endearing.
One couldn’t hope to find a more attractive couple than Clooney and Pfeiffer, who play off each other with the kind of panache we usually associate with films of the 1940s. This was just Clooney’s second starring vehicle after his career kicked into high gear on television’s E.R., and he shows what star quality is all about. Pfeiffer, who also produced the movie, has never been more likable.
One Fine Day is overdue for recognition as a romantic comedy that hits the bull’s-eye.
102. OWNING MAHOWNY
(2003)
Directed by Richard Kwietniowski
Screenplay by Maurice Chauvet
Based on the book Stung by Gary Ross
Actors:
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
MINNIE DRIVER
MAURY CHAYKIN
JOHN HURT
SONJA SMITS
IAN TRACEY
ROGER DUNN
JASON BLICKER
CHRIS COLLINS
Theatergoers and avid movie buffs didn’t need the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to tell them that Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great actor, but I suppose winning an Oscar (for his brilliant portrayal of author Truman Capote in Capote) makes it official. A true man of the theater, Hoffman doesn’t shun or disdain movies in any way, but stardom doesn’t interest him: good parts do, whether they’re in mainstream fare like Mission: Impossible III or daringly offbeat projects like Synecdoche, New York.
One of my favorite Hoffman performances flew under the radar in 2003. In Owning Mahowny he plays a nerdy assistant bank manager in Toronto who manipulates bank funds to fuel his gambling addiction. He is so methodical—and so understated—that no one suspects what’s going on, including his boss, his colleagues, and even his girlfriend (Minnie Driver). He is perpetually in debt to his bookie (Maury Chaykin) but can’t stop himself; all he can do is raise the stakes, to increase the sense of danger. When he’s done all he can, betting on the horses and major-league baseball teams, he moves to the next level and schedules secret weekend trips to Atlantic City—juggling the bank’s books as he goes.
Mahowny is an invisible man to most people—even his car is nondescript—but there is one man who is keenly interested in him: a wily casino manager, superbly played by John Hurt (who starred in director Richard Kwietniowski’s earlier film, Love and Death on Long Island). It’s his job to “read” the people who frequent his establishment, but Mahowny proves