Steve Martin's considerable talent is ill used in this vanity project, a darkly toned drama about a recluse who finds happiness when a baby is left on his doorstep.
1984. Michael McCann (Martin) is a reclusive furniture-maker who lives in a cabin in the woods, with a collection of gold coins; years earlier, his life was shattered when he learned his wife was pregnant by another man. Nearby is the estate of the Kennedy-esque Newland family, which operates a
granite quarry. John Newland (Gabriel Byrne) is an aspiring politician with a dark secret--he's fathered an illegitimate daughter by an heroin addict. One winter night, John's drunken brother Tanny Newland (Stephen Baldwin) crashes his car and kills a woman. Panicked, he flees the accident scene,
breaks into McCann's home, steals the coin collection, and disappears into the night. Soon after, the mother of John Newland's child makes her way through a snowstorm to McCann's house, where she collapses and dies, leaving the child on his doorstep. McCann adopts the baby, whom he names Mathilda.
As years pass, with the guidance of local shopkeeper Mrs. Simon (Catherine O'Hara), he becomes the world's most doting father.
Present day. Mathilda (Alana Austin) is now a bright, engaging 10-year-old; McCann has become a well-liked member of the community. John Newland (now a Congressman) is planning to drain the quarry and create lakefront property that will make him fabulously wealthy. However, he feels that life is
empty because he and his wife (Laura Linney) have been unable to have children. He reveals that Mathilda is in fact his daughter and sues for custody. At the trial, McCann is portrayed as an excellent father who has devoted his life to Mathilda, but it is established that he's unable to provide
for her future education. Mathilda testifies that she wants to live with McCann. Regardless, the judge intends to rule in favor of the wealthy Newlands. Just then, news comes that Tanny's remains have been found in the drained quarry--along with McCann's valuable coins. Mathilda is allowed to stay
with her true father, the newly rich Michael McCann.
An updating of George Eliot's classic Victorian novel Silas Marner, Martin's screenplay preserves the literary devices that have made the 1861 text a dreaded staple of high school reading lists (foreshadowing, symbolism, parallelism); meanwhile, it jettisons many qualities that make the book
marginally readable. In particular, while Eliot's amusing presentation of the townspeople tends to offset the solemnity of her melodrama, Martin relies instead on a few cloying scenes of whimsy--e.g., a father-daughter song-and-dance routine--to provide balance. The film has feel-good aspirations
but can't overcome the darkness of its first act. Martin's portrayal of the protagonist as a bitter miser is, if anything, too persuasive--it easily overshadows the father-of-the-year persona he adopts in the second half.
With ROXANNE (1987), Martin showed he could adapt a classic and allow himself plenty of freedom to be charming and very funny. The material for A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE is decidedly more serious, but that just pits Martin in a losing battle against his natural talents and image. Catherine O'Hara,
outstanding as always, could have used more screen time; Gillies MacKinnon's direction is straightforward and unremarkable. (Adult situations, substance abuse.) leave a comment
