What do you do when your wife informs you, shortly before the birth of your first child, that you are not the father? Why, you kick her arse to the curb, of course! Well you do if you are Michael McCann (Steve Martin) and you are the central character in A Simple Twist of Fate. And why not, I ask? You are all excited at the prospect of fatherhood, and then your cheating wife informs you that it’s not yours. Naturally, this desertion (some might call it justified) is going to return to bite you in the arse at some point, but if it didn’t then we wouldn’t have a film, now would we?
Becoming a miserly recluse and all round loner in the backwoods of his local redneck town, McCann lives for one thing, money. He has rather a nifty little collection of gold coins he keeps hidden at home that he likes to drag out sometimes and gaze upon while sinking plenty of vodka. McCann’s life, however, soon takes the first of many unlikely twists, involving a corrupt and scheming local politician wannabe (is there any other kind?) John Newland (Gabriel Byrne), Newland’s brother, Tanny (Stephen Baldwin), and a little girl, Matilda (various actors).
The local pollie wannabe has a skeleton in the cupboard, being father to a little girl whose mother is a junkie. He is paying the junkie Mum, Marsha Swanson (Amelia Campbell), to keep quiet so it doesn’t ruin his chances of election.
His brother, Tanny, is also in trouble and this too could wreck John Newland’s chances of election. Tanny feels for the junkie Mum, Amelia, and while driving her home one night, crashes his car and leaves the crash site fearing she is dead. His night is rounded out when he stumbles across McCann’s house and ultimately the gold coin collection that he steals. The police quickly identify the culprit, but are unable to find him or the coins.
| "When you turn a gift away from your door, it goes to the one that takes it in." |
John Newland manages to get elected, but forgets about the hush money and with Tanny mysteriously gone, Marsha takes matters into her own hands and decides to drive to Newland’s mansion where victory celebrations are in full swing to demand more money. As fate would have it, she runs out of fuel on the way, and takes her young daughter and heads off blindly into the snowy night, stumbling across McCann’s house, cold, hungry and exhausted. She slumps outside, but the child casually wanders into the warm house, startling McCann. Marsha is not found in time, however, and soon becomes a human popsicle.
McCann rushes the little girl to Newland’s mansion knowing the local doctor will be there as part of the victory celebrations. When no one seems to know about the girl, and seeing this as a chance to fill a void in his life, he successfully applies to adopt her.
Things become strained when years later, the biological father, John Newland, files for custody when it becomes clear that his wife cannot give him children of their own. Unable to match the Newland’s money, power, and influence, Michael McCann has no chance of keeping Matilda. He needs a miracle.
This film was ‘suggested’ by the novel Silas Marner by George Eliot, and adapted by Steve Martin. Strangely, the film almost works, but the two main weaknesses are the predictability of the outcome and the unlikely chain of events that shape McCann’s life.
Having said that, Martin is quite likeable and believable in a straight role, and Gabrielle Byrne is easy to pity as the luckless and morally bankrupt politician who realises his mistakes far too long after he makes them.
This is a film that a family will enjoy. It has that “Made for TV” look and feel, but is quite tightly scripted and directed, and whilst a little slow to get going, eventually settles down to be enjoyable enough so long as you are not looking for the drama and depth of Kramer vs. Kramer. If you are wondering what the simple twist of fate is, to tell you would undoubtedly spoil the whole film, so you will have to find out for yourself.
There are several options if you are multilingual, and all are Dolby Digital 2.0 surround. Your choices are English, French, and Spanish with a swag of subtitles. The surround mix is rather understated, with the barest input from the rears during some of the more ambient scenes in the swamps and snowy forest. Most of the soundtrack is front heavy with the centre speaker carrying most dialogue, with minimal separation at times.
The low-level sounds are not overly aggressive bar one explosive scene that seemed to come from nowhere and almost caused this reviewer to have an accident. Apart from this, the overall mastering is at quite a soft level, and providing you nudge the volume control there should be no trouble with hearing what is said (bar the odd line affected by heavy southern accents). Synchronisation is good and there is no evidence of hiss, dropouts or other anomalies.
