Soleil d'automne

I came home from work one day in Seattle to see Ann Margaret and Gene Hackman sitting on the steps of the apartment building next to my newer one. It was the set for Gene's crappy apt in the movie. I rushed upstairs and got a whte Tee and marker hnd got both to sign it. They could not have been any nicer. Most people were kept well back but since I lived there they had to let me through. I so hoped the movie was going to be a great movie but alas no. All the actors are at the very top of their games and if not for that this movie would have never been released as it isnt that good. I did appreciate that they tried to show a modern (at the time) divorce where daddy DIDNT come home and Mommy and daddy didnt become best friends. Ann was gorgeous and does some fine acting but Hackman and Burstyn are amazing. They both live their parts of a once happy marriage that has petrified and already dead. Ms Burstyn's portrayal of a woman who is afraid to live finally opening herself to a different life is truely beautiful. The script is just too thin with too many shortcuts where there should be none.

"Twice in a Lifetime" is one of only two films I have ever seen that is successful in showing lead characters who are both likable and unlikeable at different points in the movie...that is, showing the full range of what makes us "human." The other movie, by the way, was "Shoot the Moon," and I was surprised to see that someone else on this board also found similarities between the two.

I see some thought that Amy Madigan's "Sunny" character was too over-the-top, but I found her riveting and compelling. Others obviously did too, as I believe she was the most nominated actor/actress from this film.

Seriously ... and thankfully they are not. Maybe some of us know a guy like Harry, a regular schmo with an attentive if somewhat mousy and tired wife, nice kinds, grandkids and no mortgage. One day he spies Ann-Margaret, incongruously cast as a lightly used (no previous owner/demonstrator model) and completely unattached barmaid in her first day on the job at Harry's corner bar, just ready to give him an extended, great big wet kiss, because, you know, it's his birthday and also because there has to be an extramarital affair to set this film in motion. The mutual attraction is facile and convenient, and the film does move from one predictable plot point to another: distraught wife, angry daughter, another daughter making a life-changing decision, etc. It's all life-changing but without resolution or any real change: life goes on and perhaps that is the one nod to reality.

As others note this is Lifetime Channel-- (does that still exist?) or Hallmark (maybe sad Hallmark) Channel--level film making, from a TV pro. The cast is first-rate but it's such a predictable and formulaic script, there's really no need to check the spoiler button. This one can't break the five-star threshold to significance.

TWICE IN A LIFETIME is an emotionally-charged family drama that, despite a somewhat muddled screenplay, still works thanks to some solid gold performances. Gene Hackman plays a Seattle steelworker who loves the Seahawks and seems content with his life as he prepares for the wedding of his younger daughter (Ally Sheedy), but still feels something missing in his life. His private mid-life crises move him to leave his devoted wife (Ellen Burstyn) and begin a relationship with a local barmaid (Ann-Margret). His wife resigns herself to his decision but his elder daughter (Amy Madigan) does not and refuses to let Dad off the hook. The screenplay is safe and predictable, but what makes this film worth watching is the powerhouse performances. Hackman's quiet and powerful turn as a man dealing with being at a crossroad he doesn't know how to handle' Burstyn's beautifully-realized vulnerability as the woman who is at a loss as to what went wrong in her marriage and Madigan, in a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination, icy and gripping as the daughter who refuses to accept her parents' divorce. Watching these wonderful actors take you through the roller-coaster of emotions involved in the rending apart of a family, make this movie something very special.

Gene Hackman plays a guy in midlife crisis: he's been married to boring Ellen Burstyn for like, forever, and he's just met hottie Ann-Margret in the local bar he frequents. What's a man to do?

This thin Colin Welland script (British screenwriter of the overrated CHARIOTS OF FIRE) is enlivened considerably by Hackman's convincing portrayal of a blue-collar Everyman who's mortgaged his life for work and family to the exclusion of any dreams for himself. The decidedly unmelodramatic arc of his life change and its consequences is relatively rare in American films and is more interesting for it. Look for newcomer Amy Madigan lighting up the screen as Hackman's PO'd but devoted daughter. A wistful Pat Metheny score and Nick McLean's cinematography of unglamorous Seattle locations -- back before it became America's trendiest city -- enhance the authentic feel. Bud Yorkin, Norman Lear's former producing partner, directs to good low-key effect. Worth a look for Hackman/Burstyn/Margret fans.