Starring: Nicholas Cage, Bridget Fonda, Rosie Perez
Rating: **
THE TITLE alone pegs this film as a very typical Hollywood offering, albeit a harmless and spirited one. The events in It Could Happen to You very likely won't happen to you, now or ever, but that's the stuff fantasies are made of.
The film takes up the universal dream of winning the lottery and explores the divisive elements of sudden riches - greed, good intentions and incompatible drives are at the heart of the story with, of course, a good weepy romance thrown in for good measure.
The reason It Could Happen to You works as a film is not because of the appeal of the story - in fact, as the romance builds the film begins to lose its pacing. What keep this film from being swept into the sea of snooze-inducing predictability that swamps so many commercially-oriented films of this genre are the keen performances of Nicholas Cage and Rosie Perez.
Cage plays Charlie Lang, a Brooklyn-bred cop who loves what he does and where he does it. He'd be happy to end his days on the same streets on which he was raised, protecting the innocent and nurturing the good in his fellow man. Not so his wife Muriel (Rosie Perez) - she has a taste for money and the harpy-like personality to match. Nagging Charlie seems to be her main pastime, and the former childhood sweethearts' marriage seems to be on thin ice from the get-go.
Honest to a fault, Charlie finds himself short of a tip for the downtrodden waitress Yvonne (Bridget Fonda) whose unhappy and recently bankrupted life seems to dead-end at the local diner. Charlie promises her half the winnings of the lottery ticket he has bought that day, expecting, as anyone would, that it is always someone else who wins. Ah, but this is Hollywood, remember? The ticket is indeed a winner, and overnight Charlie and Muriel are millionaires four times over. Charlie's conscience wins the day, Yvonne gets her share, Muriel is incensed, and the fairy tale of true love conquers all is set in motion.
Cage and Perez balance one another particularly well and, though Fonda handles her role competently, it is the eroding relationship between Muriel and Charlie that provides the real spark in this film. The weaknesses in both characters are played out to the full and Perez in particular seems to have found the ideal role to exercise both the glass-shattering timbre her voice can project and her feisty personality.
As the love story takes precedence, the film loses much of its vitality, which is a disappointment. Had the direction remained tight and a touch more imagination been injected into the latter portion of the script, It Could Happen to You could have been a cut above the usual Hollywood fare.