Review of It Could Happen to You (1994) by Allan C — 21 Apr 2018

With the curtain being drawn back to reveal a soft focus NYC skyline by a woman taking down her rooftop laundry line and the film's narrator, Issac "Shaft" Hayes, starting the film off with the words "Once upon a time.

.." the fairy tale tone is set for this charming love story set in the big city. Nicholas Cage plays a kindly NYC police officer who one day doesn't have enough money to tip a waitress, Bridgette Fonda, so he promises her that he'll split the winnings of his lottery ticket if he wins.

Cage does hit the lottery jackpot and he and Fonda become media sensations when he follows through with his promise. Cage follows through with his promise much to the consternation of his greedy, self-centered, materialistic wife, Rosie Perez, and Fonda has to fend off her gold digging, irresponsible separated husband, Stanley Tucci.

With their awful partners, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Cage and Fonda become star crossed lovers in a highly predictable, but none-the-less highly enjoyable film in the mold of 1930s/40s romantic comedy.

The story is pure Hallmark Channel sap, but director Andrew Bergman and the two leads bring so much charm and likability to the film that it's nearly impossible to resist. For all the terrible films Cage has appeared in, this film served to remind me of what a good actor he can be, particularly because it was so different from his more frequent over-the-top, wild-man roles (i.

E. "Wild at Heart," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Face-Off," etc.). Cage has a quiet easy charm in this film, playing a kind, very ordinary of character, which I'd forgotten he was able to play.

Fonda is equally good as the kindhearted waitress and as whenever I see one of her film, I miss seeing her in new films and would love to see her come out of retirement. The two make an terrific onscreen couple and it's hard not to smile as you see them walking the streets of NYC, playing baseball with kids over Frank Sinatra standards, or even when they're doing the very 1990s activity of rollerblading through Central Park.

However, one thing that jumped out at me, and maybe I'm reading too much into this, but there seemed to be a weird racist undercurrent with the waspy Cage and Fonda being unhappy in their marriages to their more "ethnic" of partners (Latina Perez and Italian Tucci).

There's also a scene in the film where cage stops a convince store robber and the robber for no apparent reason is middle eastern. I hope this all was unintentional, but it did have an off-putting effect that was completely unnecessary in moving forward the film's plot.

Despite that bit of likely unintentional racism, I really do love this film. The leads are terrific. The photography by Oscar nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (father of Zoey and Emily Deschanel) has the same kind of mythic feel he brought to "The Natural" and "The Right Stuff".

The Carter Burwell score is gorgeous, as are the song choices, which include Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, The Supremes, and contemporary artists like Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lyle Lovett, and Wynton Marsalis, which serves as a nice bridge between the film's classic sensibilities and the modern setting.

It's a charming and sweet old fashioned romantic comedy that just as easily could have starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Overall, "It Could Happen to You" is a the type of romantic comedy you'd seen a hundred times before, but overcomes it's cliches and familiarities to become one of the better if not one of the best examples of this type of fluffy rom com.