IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (Andrew Bergman)

-

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is one fresh surprise. The story is compelling enough  to glue you to your seat, and Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda have a radiant chemistry, like soulmates finally in touch with one another. Though this film has been released over a decade ago, it still has timeless charm that defines the term "feel-good film" in all aspects.

Discussing issues of ambition, luck, and fate, though at times the story feels too convenient to the point of being contrived, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU involves a good-hearted cop, a good-hearted waitress, an irritating wife, a lottery ticket, and an enigmatic narrator.

When Cage's cop character has no money left to leave a tip to Fonda's waitress character, he tells her if he wins the lottery he will split the proceeds 50/50 with her; otherwise, he will return the next day and leave a tip. The expected happens: he wins!

The cop's wife played by Rosie Perez screams in joy, but not until she learns of the waitress.

I haven't really seen any film by Bridget Fonda, aside from KISS OF THE DRAGON with Jet Li, which is forgettable. This performance is very light and memorable. Her waitress portrayal is full of energy.

For me the real highlight of the movie is the courtroom drama, and the unexpected plot twist that surely tugged at my heart strings.

This is one film you'd like to keep nearby during the cold weekends. I saw a snippet of it on TV, and the next day I saw the DVD and bought it right away.

RATING: 5/5

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn...
Read more

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitaliz...
Read more

BIGKIS (Neal Tan, 2014)

-
Image
As an advocacy film, BIGKIS (INTERTWINED) gets its message across. The state of maternal healthcare in the Philippines is downright depressing, with mothers seated on the floor of public hospitals due to shortage of beds, medical equipment and hospital staff. The baby better be gaping through the birth canal before the mother receives serious medical attention.  Such social issue has been featured countless times in local documentaries and even in a feature film (2011's BAHAY BATA), but BIGKIS pushes the envelope further by bridging a connection between mother and child by means of breastfeeding, and in doing so, promoting breastfeeding in the process.  As a drama, the film tends to squeeze too much tragedy from the downtrodden lives of its characters that a lot of the dialogue feels staged for us to feel sorry for their countless miseries. Mariel (LJ Reyes), a teenage mother deals with an unwanted pregnancy and worse, the abandonment of her baby's father (Pancho ...
Read more