One Fine Day (1996)

Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one morning when overwhelmed Jack is left ... See full summary »

Director:

Michael Hoffman

Writers:

Terrel Seltzer, Ellen Simon

Stars:

Michelle Pfeiffer, George Clooney, Mae Whitman

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Michelle Pfeiffer	...	Melanie Parker
George Clooney	...	Jack Taylor
Mae Whitman	...	Maggie Taylor
Alex D. Linz	...	Sammy Parker
Charles Durning	...	Lew
Jon Robin Baitz	...	Mr. Yates, Jr.
Ellen Greene	...	Mrs. Elaine Lieberman
Joe Grifasi	...	Manny Feldstein
Pete Hamill	...	Frank Burroughs
Anna Maria Horsford	...	Evelyn
Gregory Jbara	...	Freddy
Sheila Kelley	...	Kristen
Barry Kivel	...	Mr. Yates, Sr.
Robert Klein	...	Dr. Martin
George Martin	...	Mr. Smith Leland

Storyline

Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one morning when overwhelmed Jack is left unexpectedly with Maggie and forgets that Melanie was to take her to school. As a result, both children miss their school field trip and are stuck with the parents. The two adults project their negative stereotypes of ex-spouses on each other, but end up needing to rely on each other to watch the children as each must save his job. Humor is added by Sammy's propensity for lodging objects in his nose and Maggie's tendency to wander.

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Plot Keywords:

architect | mother son relationship | divorce | love | superhero costume | 

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Taglines:

She was having a perfectly bad day... Then he came along and spoiled it.

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for language and mild sensuality

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

20 December 1996 (USA)

Also Known As:

Un beau jour

Filming Locations:

Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

ITL 801,475,000 (Italy) (18 April 1997)

Gross:

ITL 4,962,772,000 (Italy) (6 June 1997)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fox 2000 Pictures, Rosa Productions, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Near the end when Melanie bumps into the table in her apartment, it was apparently not in the script. Michelle Pfeiffer's clumsiness was therefore left in the movie.

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Goofs

When Michelle Pfeiffer is in the taxi with George Clooney's phone, he calls her up to give her messages. She then acts totally surprised that they mixed up their cell phones and she has his, but then continues to say he has a meeting at 4, indicating she already knew she had his phone by mistake because she took a phone call for him.

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Quotes

Maggie Taylor: I'm hungry.
Jack Taylor: Want a Tic Tac?
Maggie Taylor: No.
Jack Taylor: That's all I've got.

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Connections

References Rear Window (1954)

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Soundtracks

"Isn't It Romantic"
Written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
Performed by Ella Fitzgerald
Courtesy of Verve Records
by arrangement with PolyGram Film & TV Licensing

User Reviews

Just occasionally, Hollywood still lets us have a grown-up entertainment ...

The headlong screwball comedy of this breakneck romance of two stressed-out single parents is a delight from beginning to end. It has scenes as quick witted - and often as wackily off-kilter! - as the adults must be just in order to survive their average day. Stir love into this mess of two increasingly desparate modern lives and you get a miraculous souffle of a film, at once sharp and sweet.

No scene is laboured, no point is telegraphed, and - phenomenally for a modern American film - neither kids nor kittens are allowed to smother the audience in the nauseous layers of cutesiness that are usually applied. The scene with the analyst, where Clooney must obscure his account of his sex-life in an ever-more-surrealistic periphrasis involving iced cakes and fish, since his little daughter has to accompany him into the presumably crecheless analyst's surgery, and her dad is embarassed to expose her to such adult matters as he is obliged to reveal during the session, is a scene which is a model of intelligent and stylish comedy writing. The dialogue of both himself and his analyst finally founders on the increasingly strained comparisons and metaphors being attempted. The analyst begins to construct an alarmingly kinky lifestyle for his client out of what he takes to be Freudian suggestions - but which are, as noted, merely the product of old-fashioned seemliness - whereupon Clooney is forced to bring the whole towering edifice back down to earth when his version of the morning's business with the goldfish gets mixed up in the heady brew of symbolism: 'No. I mean fish. You know - 'Fish' fish?'

The humour is all good, never strained, and beautifully played by all the principals, including the wonderfully un-sentimentalised children. The transformation, stage-by-stage, of the harsh mutual competition and resentment that exists at first between these harassed adults, into an exhausted truce, by way of barely-restrained irritation, grudging gratitude, reluctant respect, and growing affection, is handled with considerable dramatic finesse throughout.

To produce the unlikely union of such an ill-assorted pair under such utterly unpropitious and unromantic circumstances is a comedic challenge of considerable proportions, and the makers of this film do an excellent job to bring it off at all. The spirits of Grant and Hepburn - even Beatrice and Benedict - are not too far away.

The only disappointment is to see how many people in the audience have gone home just as sour as when they arrived, judging from some of the comments here. But then, love curdles in any mean-spirited breast.

One particularly admires the fact that, at its conclusion, the film's romantic clincher - when the tired-out couple have to settle for just falling asleep together, despite their by now clearly desparate need for each other, - insists upon the importance of exactly this: Love, rather than merely lust, as the basis for an adult relationship.

Just occasionally, Hollywood still lets us have a grown-up entertainment. It makes a pleasant and wholesome change from the usual fare of adolescent dreams.